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IIADLEY, JUIsE 8, 1859. 



CELEBE-ATIOlSr 



OF THE 



TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY 



lOV THE 



SETTLEMENT OF HADLEY, 

MASSACHUSETTS, 

AT HADLEY, JUNE 8, 1859; 

IKCLUDING THE 

ADDRESS BY REV. PROF. F. D. ITUNTINGTON, D. D., 

OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 

POEM BY EDWARD C. PORTER, A. B., 

OF HADLEY, 

AND THE OTHER EXERCISES OF THE OCCASION. 



-<^- 



NORTHAMPTON: 
PUBLISHEJ) BY CltlDGTvX^lSr & GUILDS. 

1859. 



-LI 



NORTHAMPTON: 
PKIKTED BY TKUMBULL AND GERE. 



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HADLEY BI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 



At a Town Meeting held March 30th, 1857, it was voted, in re- 
sponse to an article in the warrant calling the meeting, having refer- 
ence to that subject, that a committee be appointed to carry the 
subject of the tenth article into effect, by employing some one of its 
emigrant sons to give a public address, and to take and adopt such 
measures as the case may require for a public celebration. 

Voted, That the town choose a committee of thirteen to carry the 
above vote into effect. 

The following persons were chosen to act upon that committee : — 

Giles C. Kellogg, Sylvester Smith, Theodore G. Huntington, Elcazer 
Porter, George Dickinson, Jeriah S. Smith, F. Bonncy, Thaddeus Smith, 
Koyal W. Montague, E. H. Bartlett, Levi Aclams, Edmund Smith, John A. 
Morton. 

At a town meeting held March 28th, 1859, it was voted that the 
town appropriate the sum of seven hundred dollars to defray the 
contingent expenses of the celebration of the Two Hundredth Anni- 
versary of the settlement of the town ; and that the money be placed 
in the hands of the Treasurer of the town's committee of thirteen, 
to be used by them in furtherance of the objects of said appropria- 
tion. 

The committee of thirteen, appointed by the town, met June 1st, 
1857, and organized by the choice of Giles C. Kellogg as Chairman, 
and F. Bonney as Secretary. 

At a subsequent meeting the following officers and committees 
were chosen to assist the general committee in carrying out the ob- 
jects of their appointment: — 

President of the Day — Erastus Hopkins, Esq., of Northampton. 

Vice Presidents — Kev. Dan Huntington, Giles C. Kellogg, Esq., Dea. Jason 
Stockbridge, Dea. Sylvester Smith, Rev. John Woodbridge, D. D., Dea. 
Ashley Williams, Mr. Chester Gaylord, and Mr. Cotton Smith. 

Treasurer — Eleazer Porter. 

Chief Marshal — Wm. P. Dickinson. 



Assistant Marshals — P. S. Williams, Benjamin Adams, Charles H. Smith, 
Levi Stockbridge, Eodney Smith. 

Toast Master — Erastus Hopkins, Esq. 

Assistant Toast 3Iasters — Arthur D. Phelps, Oliver E. Bonney. 

Committee of Finance — T. G. Huntington, Eleazer Porter, George Dick- 
inson. 

Committee on Invitations — C. P. Hitchcock, James B. Porter, L. N. Gran- 
ger, l\ev. R. Ajres, Rev. F. Tuxbury, Rev. W. H. Beanian, Joseph Smith, 
Parsons West. 

Committee on Music — Ezra Thayer, Charles Cook, 2d, Francis Smith, 
Frederick Bell, Edward Stebbins, A. H. Cook. 

Committee on Printing — Wm. S. Shipman, C. E. Lampson, J. E. Porter. 

Committee on deceptions — Joseph Smith, Eleazer Porter, J. R. Davenport, 
S. C. Wilder, T. P. Huntington. 

Executive Committee — The Committee of Arrangements. 

The Chief Marshal was authorized to appoint two aids. 

It was voted that the celebration be held on the eighth of June, 
and that there shall be an Address, a Poem and a Dinner. Rev. 
Prof. F. D. Huntington, D. D. was chosen Orator, Mr. Edward C. 
Porter, A. B., Poet, and Rev. John Woodbridge, D. D., Chaplain. 

It was decided to have the exercises as nearly upon the site of the 
first meeting house, as circumstances would admit. 

Advertisements were inserted in various Papers and Circulars 
sent to as many as could be reached, inviting all persons related to 
Hadley by descent, marriage or otherwise, to participate with us in 
the exercises of the occasion. 



The day was opened by the discharge of one hundred guns, the 
roll of the drum, and the ringing of the church bells at dawn. At 
an early hour a large concourse of people began to gather and con- 
tinued in unabated numbers, till the exercises of the day were closed. 
Soon after 10 o'clock in the morning, a procession was formed at the 
Town Hall, in the following order, and marched to the ground upon 
which the exercises of the day were to be held : — 

Aid. CHIEF MARSHAL. Aid. 

A volunteer corps of Horsemen, 50 in number, Capt. A. H. Cook. 

Belchertown Citizen Cavalry, Capt. T. R. Green. 

Northampton Infantry, Capt. Wm. R. Marsh. 

Colt's Armory Band. 



President of the day and His Excellency Gov. Banks. 

Lieut. Gov. Trask, Hon. Oliver Warner, Secretary of State, members 

of the Council, Sergeant-at-Arms and Clerks of the Legislature. 

Chap LAIN. 

Orator and Poet. 

Invited Guests.* 

Vice Presidents, 

Marshal- 

Committee of Arrangements. 

Clergymen. 

Representatives of the Press. 

Members of the Bar. 

Physicians . 

Marshal- 
Soldiers of 1812 with the National Flag. 
Sheriff. 
County Officers. 
Selectmen and Town Clerks of the five Towns. 
Representation of the olden time, 
consisting of four gentlemen, and as many ladies on pillions, dressed 
in antique costume, and others dressed in the same manner, riding 
in old carriages. Immediately after them came an old-fashioned 
churn, painted black and mounted on wheels, bearing some resem- 
blance to a cannon, illustrative of a traditionary report of the use of 
that article by the ladies of the olden time, when the town was attack- 
ed by Indians. 

Marshal. 

Citizens of Hadley. 

Representation of the Trades, 

consisting of a wagon from North Hadley, drawn by a four ox team, 

with a banner inscribed : — 

" Then the red man scoured the roofiess room, 
Which now we sweep with the Hadley broom." 

Within the wagon were old-fashioned spinning wheels, kitchen 
utensils, farm implements, guns, cow-bells, a large wooden mortar 

* It was gratifying to have present among those invited, two of the direct descend- 
ants of Rev. John Russell, Mr. H. S. Russell of Chester, Ct., and Mr. John B. 
Russell of Plymouth, Mass.; also Mr. \Vm. Chauneey of New York, descendant of 
S.ev. Isaac Chauneey, and numerous other distinguished and honored guests. 



6 

and pounder, a warming pan, a cobbler at work, and much else, repre- 
senting the past, that was novel and attractive. In direct contrast 
came representations of manufactures of the present day, comprising 
two large wagons filled with mechanics at work, from Plainville and 
North Hadley, In the first of these were brooms in the course of 
manufacture, silver wire for piano strings, a card setting machine, 
sewing machines, and, not least important, a specimen of soap from 
the manufactory of W. A. Govern. In the second of these wagons 
were represented the celebrated wheel manufactures of North Had- 
ley, specimens of hubs, felloes, wheels, &c., with mechanics at work, 
from the establishment of J. Adams & Sons, W. E. & C. P. Clark, 
D. S. Cowles, and others ; at the head of this team was a banner 
with this inscription : — 

" He who by the plow would thrive, 
Must either hold the plow or drive." 

In the center appeared the word " Plainville," the present name of 
the district, and at the end, " Patrick Swamp," its former cognomen. 
In the bottom of one of these wagons was a piece of iron with a label 
stating that it was a portion of a cannon used against the Indians in 
an attack made by them in 1676. This part of the procession was 
the great feature of the occasion. 

Makshal. 

Hatfield Brass Band. 

Citizens of Hatfield. 

Haydenville Cornet Band. 

Citizens of South Hadley. 

Citizens of Amherst. 

Citizens of Granby. 

Marshal. 

Students of Amherst College. 

Teachers and Students of Hopkins Academy. 

Scholars of the several School Districts with their Teachers. 

Citizens of other towns. 



AX ATXACK. 

As the procession neared the end of its route, an episode not laid 
down in the programme, occurred. It was no less than an attack 
from a party of Indians. A company of fifteen aborigines from 
" over the river," so well disguised that their most intimate friends 



did not recognize them, rushed out from an ambush and attacked the 
military escort. The troops gave way as if badly frightened, ran a 
short distance, and there was a sharp fight for a few minutes ; the 
Indians were apparently masters of the field, when the women of an- 
cient days, dismounting from their pillions and the men descending 
from their carriages, brought up the mounted churn, and, marshalled 
by an old continental, with white hair and queue, representing Gofie, 
came to the rescue. The red men were soon dispersed and fled be- 
hind the barns and houses. This scene was capitally enacted, the 
Indians were most completely equipped with bows, arrows, spears 
and tomahawks, clothed in blankets and skins, and with head dresses 
of feathers, and ornaments dangling from ears and nose, and faces 
painted and stained. It afforded much amusement to the spectators, 
and whenever the Indians appeared during the rest of the day, they 
were the "observed of all observers." 



After reaching the stand, the exercises were as follows : 
Singing by the Choir and audience, accompanied by the Band. 

AMERICA. 

My Country ! 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of liberty. 

Of thee I sing ; 
Land where my fathers died, 
Land of the pilgrims' pride, 
From every mountain side 

Let freedom ring, &c. 

Invocation by the Chaplain, Rev. Dr. Woodbridge. 

HYMN. 

BY MISS SUSAN A. -WOODBRIDGE 

God of the hills that gird us round, 

We praise thee in a gladsome lay, 
We bid thy glorious name resound 

From hill to hill, this festal day. 

God of the valley of our birth. 

So lovely now in summer's bloom, 
With birds, that warble forth their mirth, 

With flowers that shed their soft perfume 



8 



God of the river at our feet, 

Half-circling like a crescent mooD^ 

God of the sky, so warm and sweet. 
All glowing in the light of Jane. 

We praise thee, nature's lOng and God, 
For all thy works are greatly good ; 

But here upon this sacred sod. 

Here where the pious pilgrims stood, 

Now, when upon this natal day, 

Our thoughts go back two hundred years. 

And we recall the weary way 

Our fathers came, their toils and tears, 

Now, when we think upon that Hand, 
Which guarded them 'mid savage foes. 

Which fed the weak and trembling band, 
And ransomed them fnsm all their woes. 

Now, on this day, this natal day, 

Let us across the ages bend, 
With holy pilgrims let us pray, 

Our praises with their praises blend. 

We praise thee, God of providence. 
We praise thee, God of truth and grace, 
Our refuge and our sure defence. 
We humbly bow before thy face. 

God of all time ! we bless thy name, 
And, O ! that we may worship thee. 

Thou who wast, shalt be, art the same, 
Through ages of eternity. 

Prayer. 

Anthem by the Choir. 

Prof. Huntington then delivered the following Address. 



PROF. HUNTINGTON'S ADDRESS. 



NOTE. 

Although the chief matter of this address is history, the author has not been 
careful to preserve, in all parts of it, a stately method. Indeed, the task put 
before him was two fold : — to furnish a discourse not wholly uninstructive nor 
unworthy of permanent association with the Town and its people ; and to 
secure the continued attention of a vast assembly, including three or four 
thousand persons of all ages and conditions, — standing and sitting, to a large 
extent, in the open air, — exposed, as it proved, to copious showers of rain, — 
and surrounded by many distracting sights and sounds belonging to the lively 
character of the celebration. It has been thought best to present the address 
as it was delivered, with some passages which were necessarily omitted. 

The sources from which the facts have been collected are so various that 
special references would only encumber the pages, to little purpose. With 
some hesitation, they are therefore dropped out, excepting the instances of 
due acknowledgment contained in the text and a very few in the margin. 

F. D. H. 

Harvard University, Cambridge, June, 1859. 



ADDRESS. 



Foremost among the encouraging thoughts that crowd upon 
us as we take our places on this consecrated spot, is the thought 
that our Jubilee, so auspiciously begun, has a valid founda- 
tion. We stand here on the authentic foothold of realities — 
realities rooted in the truth of the past — living interests of to- 
day — permanent possessions for our race. Under us rests the 
basis of historical fact ; around us stand the tokens of a present 
vitality. Many different elements, all animating and fruitful of 
congratulation, enter into the high meaning of our assembly. 
Perhaps it would be justified, if it were only the harmless and 
lawful recreation of a holiday, a social diversion, or a playful 
pageant, for a steady and hard-working community. There is 
a place in God's genial providence for that. But I cannot help 
holding this great and enthusiastic meeting to be something of 
loftier significance than an entertainment. It is a reverential 
celebration of forcible persons, beneficent actions and immor- 
tal ideas. It is a visible homage to a race of men and women 
who were here before us, noble -spirited, brave-hearted, right- 
eous-minded. They were Christian heroes. It is also a cordial 
and almost spontaneous expression of some of the best senti- 
ments of our common nature : — the confidence of neighbors, 
the love of kindred, the mutual sympathy of those who sprang 
from the same place, now turning affectionately back to the 
native ground. It is a tribute to the soil and institutions of the 
country, — and so is an offering of patriotism. It honors enter- 
prize, education, industry, self-sacrifice, in the persons of those 
who planted here in hope, wrought with energy, suflTered 
patiently, builded wisely, died willingly. It gathers up the 



12 

traditions and narrations of a territory abounding in early ad- 
venture, and hands them over, as an unpretending contribution, 
to the domain of general knowledge — thus doing for the trea- 
sures of National History hereafter what the rivulets that col- 
lect the rain drops and original springs of the hill tops around 
us, do for the broad current that rolls their blended waters to 
the ocean. It refreshes our feeling and it enriches the future. 
It wakens gratitude to our fathers, and provides a better herit- 
age of sacred memories and intelligent interpretations for our 
children. Above all, it is an ascription of religious thanksgiv- 
ing to Him in whom both the fathers and the children live : — 
for it commemorates a work born of his own Spirit, and stand- 
ing in the lineal succession of that illustrious order of events 
installed on this continent by the believing men who sailed in 
the Mayflower, and who, in the ''■ compact " written in her 
cabin, declared that they had undertaken the voyage " for the 
glory of God and the advancement of the Christian Faith." 

On distributing my materials I find they fall naturally into the 
following divisions : The general constitutional character of 
a Town in the New England scheme of social and political life ; 
the natural capabilities and scenery of this village; the vital 
origin and incidents of its early settlements; its physical divis- 
ions and developments ; the conflicts with the natives and 
characteristics of Indian warfare ; the true romance of the 
Regicides ; the moral quality, local customs, and industrial 
enterprises of the people; the interests of education ;' popular 
superstitions; the Christian power and action of the Hadley 
church ; the character of the ministry ; the transition from the 
Past to the Future. 

Of the settlements of our fathers in New England, it is no- 
ticeable that they were settlements of towns. In the concep- 
tion of those clear-headed, forecasting men, who did nothing 
by accident, but everything for a practical end, the town was 
not merely an accidental community, located for convenience 
in a given quarter ; it was a distinct, realized idea inseparably 
associated with their whole system of political economy and 
an essential element in their composition of a State. On the 
one side, and that the inside, if we may say so, the town was 



13 

related to the family ; and on the other, or outside, to the Com- 
monwealth. That is, the town was made up of households. 
The family was the simplest form of social life as respects both 
religion and civil government. It was the germ of the Church 
and of the State. There were first exercised authority, subor- 
dination, sympathy, mutual help, united worship. Hence the 
family was a sacred institution, and its welfare and purity were 
defended by strict safeguards. A sufficient number of families, 
related together by a formal compact, made up a town. On 
the other hand, a sufficient number of towns, entering into po- 
litical relations for a common object, occupying a suitable 
geographical vicinity, instituted a Colony, Commonwealth, or 
State. A county was only a partial, intermediate form of or- 
ganization, mostly for the greater facility of the judicial ad- 
ministration. The confederate grouping of States, as every 
body knows, was a subsequent step, growing out of new neces- 
sities. 

It is true, in those primitive and simple days, when men were 
scattered in the wilderness, exiled from old comforts, with their 
lives in their hands, and even more consciously in the Almighty 
Hand, the presence of common perils and the consecration of 
a common faith bound them together, and cast them upon one 
another's support, independently of all formal constitutions. 
So we find the settlements of the Connecticut River, which 
belonged geographically to Massachusetts but were bound by 
moral ties or by origin and kindred to Connecticut, in the ex- 
posures of the Indian wars were constantly receiving aid both 
from the one and the other. The truth is, they were all alike 
too powerfully possessed by the vivid and all-controlling reali- 
ties of their faith in Christ and in another world, to be kept 
wholly apart by the separation of civil guardianship or distance 
of place. 

And so it comes about that, obedient to that early economy, 
indebted to that clear thought, we have come together to-day 
for a town celebration. The large hospitalities of the occasion 
rightly embrace and welcome all who, by descent or intermar- 
riage, by blood or by residence, from far or near, are related 
not merely to the geographic but the human Hadley of two 
hundred years ago. 



14 

The proper view taken by a centennial discourse must be 
retrospective. These several towns, which now occupy with 
her the territorial limits originally assigned to Hadley alone, 
namely, Hatfield, South Hadley, Amherst and Granby, had in 
the first period of our two centuries a common property, a 
common history. To that period it is most natural and fitting 
that we should to-day return. We have to do chiefly with 
those beginnings which are precious to all alike as having an 
ancestral charm and power. Any attempt to pass out into the 
several town annals and fortunes w^ould only complicate our 
survey, to the loss of interest, unity and value of impression. 
We have to deal here not with what we hold as apart, but with 
what we hold together ; an inestimable, abounding legacy of 
honorable and thrilling memories : of materials for a whole 
library of poetry, tragedy, romance, history, and even martyr- 
ology ; of strong character and bold adventure, of hardy en- 
terprise and terrible suffering, of quaint customs and majestic 
sacrifices, of love and pity, tenderness and tears ; of industry 
and order, of war and worship. The records of these things 
are happily not wholly destroyed. Notwithstanding the loss 
of the church manuscripts by fire, at the parsonage, in 1766, 
and the inevitable wear and waste of time, enough remains, in 
the carefully kept proceedings of the town, in the reports of 
local tradition, and, above all, in the researches of your faith- 
ful, untiring and most successful local collector and chronicler, 
Mr. Judd, — enough to give new impressions, I think, of the 
grand age of work and faith that went before us. It is one 
of the comforts and assistances of my part in these exercises 
to have had the friendly and almost indispensable aid of the 
learned antiquarian just mentioned. It is a privilege pertain- 
ing to you all alike, that if God shall lengthen out his useful 
life still more, you will have before you the published fruits of 
his patient and admirable labors, yielding to you and your 
children, and your children's children, treasures of entertain- 
ment and instruction. 

One of the interesting departments of inquiry respecting the 
external history of man on the globe is that where the moral 
and material parts of his condition have their most obvious 



15 

connection : the influence of geography on his movements and 
character. The moment we go below the superficial notion 
that mere accident or caprice governs his migrations and 
directs his settlements, we come upon the fact that these 
things are largely regulated by those outward causes, such as 
climate, soil, surface, disposition of water and land, plain and 
mountain, all of which we frequently name under the general 
word Nature. The more carefully we exajnine, the more clear- 
ly we shall see that this class of causes has very powerfully 
affected the great currents of human affairs. Thus the Prov- 
idence which guided the wanderings and appointed the habi- 
tations of the Eastern tribes whose fortunes are written in the 
Bible, clearly employed the geographical peculiarities of that 
oriental territory as a means of their pastoral distribution and 
political structure. Could we look closely enough into the 
whole matter, we should find that there was a remarkable law 
of relation between the table lands, the mountains, the rivers, 
the lakes, the pasture grounds, of the several countries, and 
the gradual process of colonization, the employments, the hos- 
tile or friendly intercourse, the civilizing, the wars, treaties, 
commerce, and even the religious culture of the people. Who 
shall measure the formative power of the rocky peaks, the star- 
lighted plains, the deserts — of Lebanon, Gennesaret, Ebal and 
Gerizim ? Take away all the physical elements from the He- 
brew history, and how much of our vivid conception of the 
Israelites, of their discipline and devotion, would be gone ! Or 
consider the effects wrought by that single sea that spreads its 
beautifully bounded waters between the three continents, from 
the earliest day to our own ; and how impossible then to re- 
gard the Mediterranean otherwise than as a great geographic 
civilizer ! Indeed, not only has poetry observed this, telling 
us how " Mountains interposed make enemies of nations," and 
" Lands intersected by a narrow frith abhor each other," but 
the Avhole subject has been reduced to a branch of science, 
and one of the best books of our day traces, through ingen- 
ious and striking analogies and correspondencies, the deep 
bond of influence between " the Earth and Man." If we may 
take a comparison from one of these very objects of natural 



16 

scenery, the entire course of human events is a stream or river, 
whose windings and deviations, slow or swifter current, stillness 
and dashings, clearness and turbidness, smoothness and foam, 
deeper and shallower channels, eddies and freshets are largely 
to be accounted for by the inequality of material substances 
and surfaces it has encountered on the way. 

Now, when we look beyond the great ideas that belong 
in the domains of thought and of faith, the principal agent 
that regulated the settlement of this part of New England 
was the noble River, which flows daily before your eyes, the 
thing of most life-like character even to the senses, which 
has fashioned so much of the lovely sculpture of these hills 
and meadows, whose annual spring-tide flood is the most su- 
perb pageant of the region, which irrigates your ground and 
beautifies your homes, and which has become dear, as almost 
in a human and spiritual friendship, to so many of our affec- 
tions. It was this River, with the rich alluvial acres which its 
industrious action had been depositing, layer by layer, for ages, 
that made the process of colonizing New England jump at one 
bound from the Atlantic sea-board to the valley of the Con- 
necticut. It was this that tempted some of the adventurous 
Hollanders, who were busy raising the Dutch forts and colonies 
of Manhattan and Albany along the Hudson, to sail, in 1614, 
under the direction of one Adrian Block, as far up its course 
as Windsor, calling it by the unmeaning name of Fresh River. 
It was this that brought William Holmes and his friends by 
water, around Cape Cod, from Plymouth, in 1633, to plant 
themselves just below the mouth of Windsor River, on what is 
still called Plymouth Meadow. It was this that, late in the 
same year, drew the first white travelers over-land, under the 
direction of John Oldham, followed, in November, by the com- 
pany of Samuel Hall. 

In the following years the spreading reputation of its fertile 
bottom lands attracted various bands of settlers from Massa- 
chusetts Bay ; — from Watertown to Wethersfield, from Cam- 
bridge, then Newtown, to Hartford, and from Dorchester to 
Windsor; — followed in 1636 by William Pynchon and 
some of his Roxbury neighbors to Springfield. It was the 



17 

Falls in it, at the south partof Hadley, which, for nearly twen- 
ty years afterwards, prevented the extension of these planta- 
tions northward. It was the natural boundary line furnished 
by it, which afterwards separated Northampton from the Had- 
ley plantation, and not much later cut off from the latter the 
town of Hatfield. Then, if we could at this day gather up all 
the refining touches it has given to the mind and heart, the 
taste and feeling of the successive generations, from infancy to 
age, as they have watched its play under cloud and sun, its 
rising and sinking, its ripple and its icy crust, we should proba- 
bly discover, in its apparently evanescent and shadowy impres- 
sions, causes which have exerted a deeper power on the real 
life of the place than many of the conspicuous incidents of 
the recorded history. 

We are not to forget, however, that forces yet more com- 
manding than any territorial appearance or material economy 
had to do with the settlement at Hadley. It is the privilege 
of our traditions, that we share in the dignity of the great Puri- 
tan emigration across the ocean, in having a real reason for our 
location, among the solemn questions of conscience and faith. 
About two years before this town was planted, a church coun- 
cil, sitting in Boston, composed of delegates from the Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut colonies, had so far innovated upon 
previous ecclesiastical usage as to declare that the rite of bap- 
tism might be administered to the children of non-communi- 
cants if themselves baptized and of a decent external life. 
Among the places where this rule of the half-way covenant 
introduced a division of sentiment was Hartford. Perhaps 
there were other occasions of difference. Cotton Mather says 
that "from the fire of the altar" in Hartford, "there issued 
thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes through the col- 
ony," but that "the true original of the misunderstanding was 
about as obscure as the rise of the Connecticut river." Rev. 
Mr. Hooker, who had moved there from the First Church in 
Cambridge, eminent and judicious, had died ten years before. 
His colleague and successor, Samuel Stone, leaned to the new 
way, was possibly a little disposed besides to extend the recog- 
nized conditions of church membership, and at the same time 

2 



18 

to favor some of the measures of the Presbyterians. A minority 
of the church opposed these tendencies, to the extent of a con- 
troversy, venerating the measures and the memory of Hooker, 
and standing firm on the Cambridge Platform. That the origin 
of these diificulties, however, was earlier than the Boston Sy- 
nod appears from the fact that special local councils had been 
previously held at Hartford, three years in succession. At last, 
an apparent agreement, called a " pacification," was reached; 
but tliis was soon broken, and as several of the recusant mi- 
nority, including Gov. Webster, having been threatened with 
discipline, were on the point of withdrawing, for the purpose 
of joining the church under Rev. John Russell at Wethersfield, 
the General Court interfered and peremptorily laid an injunc- 
tion on both parties, forbidding at once the excommunication 
and the secession — a characteristic illustration of the existing 
relations between the civil and ecclesiastical power. Just 
now the minority sagaciously bethought them of a less offensive 
expedient for getting rid of the obnoxious connection : that of 
moving up the river into the Massachusetts Colony. A formal 
and pious petition to that effect was entered at Boston, by John 
Cullick and Wm. Goodwin, expressing a hope that "through 
the grace of Christ," " the conversations " of the petitioners 
should " be without offence." A grant was secured for lands 
"East of Northampton," with a condition affixed that a new 
council should be called for an orderly composing of the Hart- 
ford troubles : — a condition that shows how scrupulously the 
authorities guarded both the purity and the peace of their reli- 
gious organization. They would not suffer a diplomacy which 
merely separated the antagonists without healing the discord. 
The upshot was a censure of both sides, acceptable terms of 
reconciliation, and a continued fellowship between the Hartford 
and Hadley churches. There had evidently sprung up a sym- 
pathy between these Hartford emigrants and a portion of the 
church at Wethersfield, including their minister, Mr. Russell, 
which resulted in a transfer of a majority of the latter, with Mr. 
Russell himself, to Norwottuck, or Hadley. Thus it appears 
that the Founders of Hadley were strict and determined Con- 
gregationalists, as opposed to the Half-way baptismal Cove- 



19 

nant, on the one hand, and to Presbyterianizing tendencies 
on the other. 

The meeting at Hartford, at which the engagement to move 
was drawn up and signed, was held April 18, 1659, at the 
dwelling house of "Goodman" Ward. Among the names of 
signers which are still known in the living generation of the 
present town are Porter, Warner, Marsh, Russell, White, 
Field, Dickinson, Smith, Hooker, Hitchcock, Montague, Bil- 
lings, and Hubbard. The name of Partrigg also occurs, be- 
ing undoubtedly the same from which the considerable dis- 
trict east of the mountain has been called " Patrick's," or Part- 
rigg's " Swamp." The whole number of the withdrawers' 
names is sixty, more than half of which belonged to Hartford, 
the rest being divided between Wethersfield and Windsor; 
but only forty-two men appear to have actually joined the 
expedition. It was stipulated that house-lots, embracing 
eight acres each, should be laid out on the east side of " the 
great river," leaving " a street twenty rods broad betwixt the 
two westermost rows of house-lots." To this wholesome 
provision at the outset we owe the ample breadth of this 
avenue, unsurpassed in New England, which with its two 
rows of sentinel elms, supplied by the taste of successive gen- 
erations, has left an image of beauty in the memory of admiring 
travelers scattered in all lands. On the part of the Northamp- 
ton settlers it had been voted, in October of the previous year, 
to " give away Capawonk," — the Indian name of the lower 
meadow in Hatfield, — provided the Hartford men should " set- 
tle two plantations, one on each side of the river ;" provided 
they should " maintain a sufficient fence against hogs and cat- 
tle ;" provided they should " pay ten pounds, in wheat and 
peas, " and provided, fourthly, they should " inhabit here by 
next May." Remember, now, that this was less than thirty 
years after the Pilgrims dropped anchor in Plymouth Bay, less 
than half of man's full life-time after the mighty hand of Eng- 
lish civilization touched the wilderness. Most of the original 
planters were born, and had their early training, in the Mother 
Country. 

2a 



20 

An order was adopted by the General Court, May 28, 1659, 
directing five persons, — viz : " Capt. Pinchon, Left. Holyhoke, 
Deacon Chapin, Wm. Holton and Richard Lyman," — three be- 
ing of Springfield and two of Northampton, — to " lay out the 
bounds of the toune at Norwottocke," — " not only to carry on 
a towne but Church-worke also," "that this wilderness may be 
populated, and the maine ends of our coming into these parts 
may be promoted." By their report, the limits were defined ; 
being fixed at " the head of the Falls " on the south, near " the 
hills called Petowamachu," our Holyoke ; at the little brook 
called Nepasoaneag and Mount Kunckquachu, our " Toby," 
on the north; at a line nine miles from the Great River, Quienec- 
licott, eastward ; together with a strip on the west side of the 
river north of Northampton, two miles wide, extending from a 
" little riverett" running by Capawonk up to " a great mountain 
called Wequamps." These two last boundaries are readily re- 
cognized now as Mill River in Hatfield, and Sugar Loaf Moun- 
tain. In the actual allotment, the town on the east-ward never 
extended nine miles. Among those who settled on the west 
side we find ihe names of Dickinson, Graves, Belding, White, 
Warner and Billings, with Allis and Meekins, of Braintree 
in the Massachusetts Colony. The three Sachems of Nolwot- 
ogg, or Norvvottuck,* of whom Pynchon procured the deed of 
this territory were Chickwollop, Umpanchella, and Quon- 
quont. The price was about seven hundred feet of wampum 
and a few trinkets. In money the whole cost of the town ter- 
ritory was one hundred and fifty pounds, — about the present 
price of four acres of meadow land; — and this was thought to 
be a higher rate than was paid for any other plantation in New 
England. It serves to show the rapid increase of value, that 
only in 1664, seven hundred acres of the *' Bradstreet farm" in 
Hatfield, were bought for tvvo hundred pounds in money, — fifty 
pounds more than the original price of the whole settlement, — 
besides a thousand acres in Whately and five hundred else- 
where given in exchange. 

* The general Indian name of the region, " Norwottock," or " the City in 
the mi(l!^t of the Eiver," is spelt, in diilerent documents, in nineteen ditfei-- 
ent wa^s. 



21 

The name, Hadley,* — adopted for no very apparent reason, 
probably the early associations of some settlers from the Had- 
ley of Suflblk County, in Old England, — was applied by the 
General Court in 1661. Commissioners were required to be 
appointed to sit as Magistrates at the local courts in North- 
ampton and Sjjringfield; and Mr. Wm. Westwood was "au- 
thorized to joine persons in marriage." 

By the first plan of the village in 1663, it would appear that 
the general and unusually regular features remain essentially 
unchanged. Forty-seven house-lots were arranged on the two 
sides of the single street where we are now assembled. There 
were three highways leading into the meadows, one at the 
north end, on ground since abraded by the river, another at 
the south end as now, and the third the same that still, as it 
did at first, conducts by the grave yard. There were also, as 
now. North and South and Middle highways running eastward, 
toward Pine Woods, or the Pine Plain, — the middle one, since 
"Academy Lane," and later yet "Russell Street," ending with 
a gate. Of these house-lots a few seem to be, or to have been 
during the present generation, held by persons of the same 
name and blood as their original owners, — as those of Monta- 
gue, Porter, and White. The spot occupied by the "Russell 
church," or a little north of it, was reserved as town property, 
and was next north of the residence of Rev. Mr. Russell. After 
Mr. Russell, the settler that was found most frequently in pub- 
lic connections was Peter Tilton, a man of great energy and 
activity, sagacious and trusty; the ancestor of the Eastmans. 
**The original Porter family is represented here to-day, not only 
by numerous residents and guests, and in the plain prose of these 
exercises, but in the graceful genius of your Poet. 

According to the general principle of the settlements, all 
settlers were assigned land, though not in the ratio of their 
previous possessions; and it does not appear that there was any 
case of serious discontent or breach of harmony, in what, judg- 
ing by the common characteristics of human nature, and the 
Yankee human nature in particular, we should pronounce a 
very delicate and difficult undertaking. It was clearly the ap- 

*" Hadleigh," or " Headleye," in the Saxon. 



22 

proved policy to make as many citizens as possible proprietors 
in the soil, thereby laying what has always proved one of the 
surest foundations not only of local prosperity, but of patriot- 
ism and civil stability. Consider the democratic equality. It 
is proved by the records, that the largest difference of own- 
ership, among the original assignments, was as the difference 
between one and four : that is, that the largest landholder 
owned only four times as much as the smallest. What a model 
of christian economy was this village one hundred and ninety- 
eight years ago ! 

The outlying portions of the township were ultimately dis- 
tributed, in a similar way, to the inhabitants, — " Forty acre 
Meadow," to the North, between the main village and " School 
Meadow," — " Fort Meadow " to the South East, — " Hockanum 
Meadow," so called from a similar district of land in East 
Hartford, on the South, and the " Great Meadow" occupying 
the body of the peninsula; including "Meadow Plain" next 
the home-lots, " Aquaviise," or " Aquavitae Bottle," from some 
resemblance to such a vessel, southward, " Maple Swamp " 
adjoining, and a region on the northwestern extremity, named 
" Forlorn," or otherwise "Honey Pot," either from a deep place 
in the river, or, as some have supposed, from being the resort 
of wild bees, or, as is less likely, from the richness of the soil. 
Besides these, there were four meadows on the west or Hat- 
field side of the Puver: viz. the "Great North," the "Little 
Meadow," the " South Meadow," or Wequettayag, including an 
Indian " reservation " called " Indian Bottom," or " Indian Hol- 
low," and the "Southwest Meadow," toward Northampton,** 
or "Capawonk," the two latter, separated by Mill River, being 
sometimes called Great and Little " Pansett." 

Enclosures were made chiefly at common expense, by fences, 
embankments and deep ditches, — traces of the latter still re- 
maining in some parts of the town. The existence of these on 
high and dry grounds, where now there is plenty of timber, has 
caused a good deal of speculation. But I have it from one of 
the oldest and best-informed of the present generation,"* that 
within the memory of his grandfather the growths of large timber 
*Major Sylvester Smith. 



23 



in this neighborhood were so scanty that the sills of a house in 
Hockanum were brought from Belchertown. 

This destruction of the forest and underbrush was doubtless 
a periodical business of the savages-a fiery clearmg-to facili- 
tate their pursuit of game. What more magnificent or awful 
scene will the imagination furnish, than would be unrolled be- 
fore a spectator stationed, at some earlier time of the unbroken 
forest, on some of these heights, commanding the long vistas of 
the valley, the slopes and hill sides on either side, with the 
peaks of distant mountains peering through the oi3enings, or 
soarin<^ above their lines,-tiiere on a dry October night to 
witness the whole broad and far-reaching regions swept by 
swift, fierce floods of flame,-the hot, red powers of devasta- 
tion darting from ridge to ridge, plunging down into the glens 
and gorges, running in lurid sport across the plains leapmg in- 
to the taller oaks and chestnuts and grappling with their tops 
as if in conscious fury, the wind swaying the blazing sheets, or 
whirling aloft and scattering abroad the foliage in showers of 
living coals thick as hailstones,-the clouds of smoke rolling 
aloft into the black concave overhead, or drifting in the horizon, 
-ton-ues of fire set like torches on every hill-top,-the glow- 
ino- reflections of the river winding and doubling like a crimson 
sash loosened from the melting bosom of the meadows,--the 
roar and crackle and hissing of the heat,-the crashing of the 
fallinc. trees,-the screams of startled birds, and howls and 
shrieks of blistered animals,-all creating a grander commmg- 
!ing and variety of the powers and voices of conflagration than 
any level burning of the prairies, and, leaving out the tmgic 
elements of human agony, on a vaster scale of majesty than 
Moscow or any of the burning cities of the east. 

Mount Holyoke was used as a fence for Hockanum Meadow ; 
with a strip of rails,_les3 substantial but much more trouble- 
some to keep in repair, westerly toward the river. A capital 
rec^ulation existed for some time,-that whoever left a gate open 
or°thebars down, should be fined two shiUings and sixpence. 
These rules were made necessary by the importance of keep- 
ing the cattle confined to the back fields and woods, away from 
the crops. 



24 

One of the chief signs aiul instruments of civilization is the 
Roatl. Roads were laid out in Hadley wliile the land was com- 
mon, the lots upon them being appioj)iiated afterwards. A 
cait-path was made through " Forty Acres " to Mill Brook, now 
North Hadley, in 1667. Mending highways was then a some- 
what extensive town practice. Communication had to be kept 
up with Hartford ; and in one instance it seems that the teams of 
Hadley and Northampton were called out to repair the roads in 
Sufficld, Ct. Even so late as the close of that century, the 
records show that the people had a difficulty in keeping down 
the bushes in the highways. Tiie Northampton ferry was long 
at the south end of Hadley Street, and by that the Northamp- 
ton people went principally to Springfield. Toward Massa- 
chusetts Bay the first settlement that offered a lodging, — and 
that not till 1664, — was at Q,uaboug, or Brookfield. Beyond 
there, the Bay Road branched into three routes, — one by Nash- 
ua, now Lancaster, another by Worcester, and a third by Graf- 
ton. These, however, were little more than savage trails for 
traveling " Indian file," — paths for a single horse or man. No 
wheeled vehicle passed between Hadley and Boston till about 
the close of that century. The first bridge in that direction, ex- 
cept for foot-passengers, crossed Fort River near the south end 
of Spruce Hill, was built in 1675, and was succeeded, some 
thirteen years later, by Lawrence's bridge, near the site of the 
one now in use. Produce for Boston was carried around by 
water. It was carted to \Villimansett, below the Falls. Skil- 
ful boatmen navigated the Enfield rapids. The grist-mill was 
at Hatfield ; and the grist from the East side was carried over 
by two ferrymen, on certain days of the week, for three pence 
a bushel, payable, like other toll, in grain. In 1670, however, 
the East-side farmers set up a mill of their own, on the North 
Stream, now North-Hadley. In Philip's War this mill was 
turned into a military garrison, and shortly after was burnt by 
the Indians ; but it was rebuilt and became the nucleus of en- 
terprise in the upper village. Flour was sent down the River. 
Joseph Smith, the first permanent settler there, was the miller, 
and brought up his sons to the craft. The bolting was done in 



25 

families, with clotli or sieves ; Mrs. Richard Montague, of Had- 
ley Village, did it for her neighbors by the barrel. The mani- 
fold branches of industrial development were soon in operation. 
Of course, the soil has determined, from the beginning, that 
most of the inhabitants should live by husbandry ; and they 
have generally not only lived but, whatever they may individu- 
ally report, have thriven by it. It may be also said that agri- 
culture as a science has benefitted by the intelligence and 
industry of the farmers here. In the early period, there was 
an extensive and common merchandise in tar. Previous to the 
year 1700, some now obsolete occupations and officers existed : 
as packers (of meat and fish), fence-viewers, hay wards, hog- 
ringers, cowkeepers, shepherds, and the Lord's Day guards, 
who took a gun to meeting, and had a particular seat. The 
second Samue! Porter was the first considerable merchant, was 
next in importance in the County to Pynchon, and grew rich. 
Dr. Westcarr traded with the Indians. He seems to have sold 
them, contrary to law, certain hot liquors, including rum, called 
in those days " kill-devil," a name so notoriously cantradictory 
to the actual effect of the drink, that one is inclined to attrib- 
ute its invention to that personage himself, who is apt to be 
never so much alive as when he is supposed to be dead. The 
mechanics commonly united their small trades with the general 
business of farming. Produce was more the currency than 
money. 

It was only eight years after the laying out of the Town that 
the people of the West-Side, to the number of fourscore and 
ten, sent to the Colonial Governor and Deputies a petition for 
a separate organization, — setting forth the distressing and intol- 
erable inconveniences of the ferry, especially as creating a vio- 
lation of the Lord's Day in the labor and time of crossing, in 
rough weather causing the women and children to "screech" 
and be made " unfit for ordinances," bringing the men into 
the water and through the ice, wetting them to the skin, and 
obliging them to leave many of their number at home, exposed 
as '• a prey to the heathen." One house was already burnt to 
the ground while the men were gone to worship. The people 



26 

of the East side opposed this dismemberment, conceiving that 
their neighbors had " no call of God thereto." The matter was 
debated wit!) spirit by both parties some three years, when in 
1670, the incorporation was granted, and the territory set off 
was called Hatfield, or " Hattfields," after an English town. 
Rev. Hope Atherton of Dorchester was first minister, with six 
male church members, and sixty pounds salary, payable in wheat 
and pork. He was followed by Rev. Nathaniel Chauncey, son 
of Charles Chauncey, second President of Cambridge College, 
and later by Rev. William Williams. A free school was early 
established. By the terms of the separation, a large portion of 
the meadow land next the river, west of the ferry, was reserved 
to Hadley*. In 1692 Hatfield moved for a transfer of this land 
to her own domain, which was not obtained till after a series of 
hard legal contests extending over forty-one years. 

Up to 1700 the places included in Hampshire County were 
Springfield, embracing Longmeadow, Northampton, Hadley, 
Hatfield, Westfield, Deerfield (or Pocomtuck), Suffield (or 
Southfield), Enfield, and Brookfield. Settlements were soon 
made in Sunderland (or Swampfield), and Northfield (or Squa- 
keag). 

From time to time, on petition of the inhabitants, the Gen- 
eral Court extended the bounds of Hadley towards the east and 
south. The contents at the largest were eighty square miles. 
Oliver Partridge of Hatfield, surveyed, in 1739, from a point 
six miles east of the old meeting-house, five miles north and 
four miles south, and from each extremity a line straight to the 
river, — a very regular outline. A difficulty in settling with 
Sunderland the north line, which had formerly terminated at 
the mouth of Mohawk brook, led to the grant of an equivalent 
at " Deerfield Falls," above Sunderland, called Hadley Farm, 
sold in 1749. Middle Street was called " the hill over the low 
valley." In 1681 Isaac Warner had a grant of a houselot on the 
river-bank, extending from the main street up towards " Cole- 
man's brook." This was the " Ilighbanks," since washed away. 
The late Dr. Porter knew a well of water on the west bank, 
which was originally dug and belonged to a house on the East 
bank. 



•27 

The vote for a tier of lots on what is now Middle Street was 
first passed in 1684 ; but very few lots were taken till the close 
of that century, on account of danger from savages. Swamp 
lands east of Forty acres, between Coleman's brook and the 
Upper Mill, were fenced in 1699, and called " The Skirts of 
Forty Acres." Traces of ihe " old ditch " connected with this 
skirt fence are still visible. All this region above Coleman's 
brook, including the land which afterwards, as the " Phelps 
Farm," was enthusiastically described by President Dwight, in 
his New England Travels, was kept as a common field till after 
1750, about which time Capt. Moses Porter built there. Two 
gates, on the highway, had to be opened and shut by all travel- 
ers. Lots were first laid out north of Partrigg's Swamp in 1714. 

A point of special interest, connected with our early annals 
and the incipient fortunes of the settlement, is the character 
and conduct of the natives of the soil. Most of the recent his- 
torical writers push us to the unwelcome opinion that, after all, 
our high notions about the New England Indians must be a 
good deal lowered and many of our admirations sacrificed. It 
is hard for hero worshippers to hear the blows of the iconoclast's 
hammer upon their idol, and it is hard for everybody to see an 
ideal vision of honor, courage or genius dispelled. With a pain 
of this sort we are shown too many reasons to believe that these 
wild children of the forest, instead of being magnanimous, in- 
trepid, enterprising, intellectual and reverential, were, to a mis- 
erable degree, mean, cowardly, cruel, lazy, filthy, and easily 
sunk in some disgusting forms of sensuality. Their braves very 
often turn out to have no other courage than a brutal and re- 
vengeful ferocity. The men tyrannized over the women, which 
is always one of the surest signs of a low nature. Their intel- 
ligence was little else than a small species of cunning. Their 
propensities to thieving, treachery and falsehood were a. contin- 
ual disappointment to those who trusted them. Philip himself 
was wily and cautious rather than heroic, and was not often 
seen in bold engagements. Instances of cannibalism occurred, 
at least among the Mohawks, by whom " twenty-seven French- 
men " appear to have been roasted and devoured. Perhaps the 



28^ 

true estimate of these unfortiiiiate and m3sterioiis tribes will be 
founfl somewhere between the old sentimental traditions and 
these disparagements of a more recent date.* 

One of the circumstances on the more attractive side of the 
aboriginal character is the trace of a certain rhetorical felicity 
in the invention and application of names, betraying an un- 
questionable activity and sometimes brilliancy of the power of 
imagination. Indian words are pictures. No mind, for in- 
stance, could apply to a beautiful rural lake such an epithet as 
"the smile of the Great Spirit, '" without being familiar not only 
with what we all understand as poetic conceptions of nature, 
but also with a loftier range of ideas penetrating the region of 
art and even of religion. And this is only one of many com- 
mon examples. Another occurs in the Indian designation of 
this very domain of our pride and love, Norwottuck, — " the 
iiabitation of the River." 

We shall not fail of finding some cause of respect and 
even of fellow-feeling towards these barbarians, in their ev- 
ident susceptibility to the natural attractions of this valley. 
For one I shall always deem it mutually to the interest of the 
spot and its red master, that he lingered about its meadows, 
wet his canoe in its waters, built his wigwam under its woods, 
lit his council-fires by its hills, and made his chosen grave in its 
loveliness. That he did so, we have visible and material proofs 
enough left, in the relics of his rude skill and taste, in the 
mouldering bones that have been found bleaching on the sur- 
face or decaying in the loam ; in the populous grave-yard on 
the ridge between the two " School-meadows" where a charm- 
ing vista of landscape so irresistibly suggests the happy hunting 
ground of the departed, and even furnishes no faint symbol of 
the " green meadows and still waters " of the Christian immor- 
tality, — the " River of the water of life," — the " living green " 
of the "sweet fields" of that Beulah where the Shepherd, who 
is also the Lamb, leads his flock forever, and the mountains that 
keep watch eternally around the New Jerusalem. Other proofs 

*Mr. Palfrey, in tlie first volume of his " History of Massachusetts," gives 
emphatic expression to the darker side of the picture. 



29 

we have in forts that are still partly discernible, in half-levelled 
mounds and embankments, as in the spot just mentioned, and 
near the South Meadows ; and others yet in the flinty arrow 
heads, stone pestles, hatchets, hoes and mortars, which click 
against your ploughshares, or reward the eager eyes of boyish 
teamsters, in your homelots. 

Among other abating representations of the modern investi- 
gators, we find a diminished estimate of the number of these 
New England Indians ; so great a reduction of the popular im- 
pression, indeed, as to suggest the inference that, except as they 
made up for their fewness by their fierceness, the vague fears 
struck by them into the hearts of our ancestors were dispropor- 
tioned to the danger. There seems no reason to suppose that 
when the whites arrived there were in all the towns of this valley 
more than about twelve or fifteen hundred Indians. Of the 
Nipmucks there were four small tribes, — the Agawams about 
Springfield, the Woronocks about Westfield, the Pocomtucks 
at Deerfield, and the Norvvottucks or Nonotucks about Mts. 
Holyoke, Tom and Warner. Eastward, at Brookficld, were 
the Quabougs, and far westward the Mohawks. The Nip- 
mucks were not distinguished as warriors. When they under- 
took an expedition against the Mohawks, they came back, it is 
said, " much ashamed, and retired under shelter of the English." 
The Connecticut River Sachems were not great men. Under 
the effects of the white men's liquors, dealt out for skins, 
baskets, mats and land, their heroism mostly eflTervesced in 
drunken brawls. The Indians that afll'righted these settlements 
in 1675 were not only Nipmucks, — who annoyed the whites as 
much by peaceable vices as by warlike onsets, — but Wampan- 
oags who had been driven over from Rhode Island and Pocas- 
set Swamp. 

The Summer of 1675 was a dark time for Hadley and the 
neighborhood. The terrors of savage slaughter and all its at- 
tendant aggravations hung over the people, — a cloud of mis- 
erable, dim, uncertain fear, — when they went out to their lots 
in the morning, leaving helpless families behind, when they lay 
down at night, when they gathered for worship. Flames of 



30 

hostile conflagrations, kindled by a scarcely visible but relent- 
less enemy, lighted up the valley at midnight; and bullets 
from hidden marksmen went to the hearts of farmers working 
in their fields. These disasters were supposed by the people 
to have been foreboded by an omen in the air, — a strange 
sound, like the " report of a great piece of ordnance, with a 
shaking of the earth and a considerable echo when there was 
no ordnance really discharged," which, according to Mather, 
was heard along the valley, Sept. 10, 1674. Let those who 
are more confident about the limits of God's action in the Na- 
ture that he ordered and governs than any knowledge of mine 
has made me, call this a superstition, or by some worse or bet- 
ter name. The minds of men have been very subject to it, 
both long before and ever since Shakespeare made Lenox 
speak in Macbeth of 

" Lamentings heard i' the air ; strange screams of death ; 
* And prophesying, with accents terrible, 
Of dire combustion, and confused events, 
New-hatched to the woful time. The obscure bird 
Clamored the live-long night. Some say, the earth 
Was feverous and did shake." 
" And even the like precurse of fierce events, 
As harbingers preceding still the fates, 
Have Heaven and earth together demonstrated 
Unto our climatures and countrymen." 

The succession of tragic events opened at Mendon, July 14, 
but more decisively at Brookfield, Aug. 2, with the murderous 
attack on Capt. Hutchinson's party. Rev. Solomon Stoddard's 
letter from Northampton to Increase Mather, recounting the 
suspicious appearances among the natives, and giving awful 
reasons for disarming even the apparently friendly portion of 
them, was written in September. Capt. Lothrop and Capt. 
Beers arrived in Hadley a little after the middle of August. 
There was a fight near " Sugar Loaf Hill," Aug. 25. The af- 
fair in Hadley street, in which the regicide Goffe was implicated, 
took place Sept. 1, Wednesday. Other attacks, up the River, 
toward Northfield, were made by the same party Sept. 2d, 



31 

4th, and 6th. The fearful havoc by the River Indians at 
Bloody Brook, with the sudden destruction of the " Flower of 
Essex," the seventy men, soldiers and teamsters, who were am- 
bushed as they were stopping to gather grapes, while on their 
return from Deerfield to Hadley with teams of threshed grain, 
under Capt. Lothrop of Beverly, occurred Sept. 18, creating 
heavy mourning throughout the colony, Capt. Samuel Apple- 
ton of Ipswich was ordered by the Council to take command 
on the River, Oct. 4, and in the "Memorials " of the Appleton 
family in Boston, I find letters from him dated at Hadley, where 
his troops were quartered. Hubbard says his " industry, skill, 
and courage" saved these towns from being turned to ashes. 
He was evidently of an energetic spirit and quite an Old Tes- 
tament cast of mind. He says with a Hebrew emphasis, in a 
letter of Oct. 12, "By the prayers of God's people, our Israel 
in his time may prevail over this cursed Amalek ; against 
whom I believe the Lord will have war forever until he have 
destroyed him." 

Individuals continued to be picked off by Indian muskets. 
Major Pynchon spent much time at Hadley, but was called 
home at the burning of Springfield, on the night of Oct. 4. 
An express had ridden up to inform him of the plot, and on 
October 5 the town was in flames. His letter back to Rev. 
Mr. R,ussell, the next day, was worthy of a Puritan believer. 
It begins : " Rev. Sir, — The Lord will have us lie in the dust 
before him. It is the Lord, and blessed be his holy name." 
Those were days of faith. Mr. Russell wrote: "Our town 
of Hadley is likely to drink next, (if mercy prevent not.) 
of this bitter cup ; we are but fifty families, and now left 
solitary. We desire to repose our confidence in the Eternal 
and Living God who is the refuge of His people." 

The formidable attack upon Hatfield was on October 19th. 
Fires were lit in the woods to draw the English into ambus- 
cade. Some scouts were killed ; but the enemy were repulsed 
by Capt. Moseley at the middle of the street, and Capt. Poole 
and Capt. Appleton at either end, — the latter, says Hubbard, 
having a "bullet passing through his hair, by that whi'^per tell- 
ing him that death was very near." So many settlers deserted, 



32 

from fright, that Capt. Appleton was obliged to issue a public 
order forbidding any to leave the towns without a " permit " 
from the Commander in Chief. A council of war was formally 
established. A hundred and forty-five English, including one 
woman, were killed that memorable year, in the Old County of 
Hampshire. The Nipmucks sometimes cruelly mutilated their 
captives : but what shall we say, when we know that even civ- 
ilization itself was so far barbarized by the exasperations of the 
times, that our white predecessors had actually caused an In- 
dian squaw to be torn to pieces by dogs ? 

In the following cold winter, — snow "mid-thigh deep," — 
measures were taken for breast-works, and for two lines of 
wooden palisados, one east and the other west of Hadley street, 
the stakes eight feet high and fastened together ; so that the 
village was one enclosed pen, with strong gates through which 
every inhabitant was required to pass in going out to work. 
The people were divided into four squadrons, under military 
rules. The Indians wintered near Brattleboro', Brookfield and 
Albany. The next year, Deacon Goodman was shot at Hock- 
anum, while looking after his fence. A proposition was made 
to concentrate all the people of the county at Springfield and 
Hadley for better defense ; but the Northampton families 
thought it would show a " lack of faith in the Lord." 

In the disastrous fight at Turner's Falls, May 19, were Had- 
ley Dickinsons; also Rev. Hope Atherton of Hatfield, uho was 
wandering about three days afterwards alone in the woods, and 
came into Hadley almost starved. He represents the savages 
as having a reluctance, perhaps religious, to take him as a cap- 
tive. On the SOth of May an engagement took place in the 
Hatfield meadows, and among those who fell, says Mather, was 
"a precious young man whose name was Smith," — an ancestor 
of Oliver Smith, famous for his legacy. 

Tiie pageant which has moved through these streets this morn- 
ing carries us back to another and very different procession 
that enlivened the same scene just one hundred and eighty- 
three years ago. To day is the anniversary of the arrival of 
four hundred and fifty men, as relief troops from Connecticut 
under Major Talcott. It was a spectacle of solemn joy. Those 



33 

motly ranks, some in bright British uniforms, some in plainer 
colonial dress, some of them filled with friendly Pequots and 
Mohesans in brilliant and fantastic war-blankets, and others 
with well mounted soldiers, brought a welcome promise to the 
wearv and reduced families, as they marched cheerily up the 
street with their red silk banner and animating music. We 
must remember how sorrow had been making its darker en- 
trance, from day to day, and night to night, for many months, 
as the fearful news came flying in, after each engagement, that 
one and another home had lost its master or its ornament, the 
grey head, or the young man in his strength ; how mothers and 
children had mourned ; how often the venerable or beautiful 
body, borne suddenly in before any alarm was given, ended long 
hardships with the sharper agonies of bereavement; how fear 
had become the habitual feeling ; how the people looked out 
over their lonely fields as they waked in the night, to see where 
the fire of their foe was kindled, and then dreamed again of 
slaughter, captivity and starvation. No wonder there was glad- 
ness and gratitude on the eighth of June. 

Nor did the succor come too soon. A few mornings after, 
as the farmers were about going out to hoe their corn in Fort 
Meadow, some two hundred and fifty Indians came up from the 
East, burnt a barn, and were proceeding to other pillage, when 
"a great gun," i. e. a small cannon was fired at them from a 
house at the north end of the street, — and they fled, routed and 
pursued by some of Talcott's soldiers. That summer, the peo- 
ple of Hadley voted that, in harvest time, not less than forty 
men should go at once to work in Hockanum or Fort Meadow ; 
that while these were working none should venture to work in 
Great Meadow, on penalty of a fine of three shillings ; and that 
the parties of laborers should go out in these two directions on 
alternate days. 

Another great day of rejoicing came at the end of May, two 
years after. In the preceding October, a disastrous onset of 
savages upon Hatfield, ended, after murder and burning, in 
the carrying away, northward, of seventeen captives, mostly 
wives, mothers, and young children. What a world of torture 
for strong and loving souls is opened, before a sympathetic ima- 

3 



34 

gination, in that single sentence ! Nearly all the materials of 
romance and tragedy that, when touched and marshalled by 
genius, have thrilled the heart of the world, are gathered into 
it. 

Two brave and patient men, whose wives and children had 
been snatched from them into the horrors of this exile, — Ben- 
jamin Wait and Stephen Jennings, — let their names be memo- 
rable in all the sad or happy homes of this valley forever ! — 
after suffering their solitude a month in the vain hope of some 
effective pursuit or negotiation, arose and went forth together 
with their grief. Their first point was Albany, where the un- 
feeling authorities not only discouraged them, but sent them 
by force to New York, to Gov. Andros. Tlie dear faces were 
farther ofl^ than ever. Every day was a fresh anguish. A 
month more, and they were back at Albany, with permission 
to proceed. But new hindrances met them. Winter was 
setting in. At last they hired a Mohawk to guide them to 
Lake George, where he left them, with a canoe and a rough 
sketch of the route. They were the first New Englanders 
that passed that way to Canada. Over the two lakes, over the 
hills, and the streams, and through the ice and frost, paddling 
their canoes, or bearing them on their backs, sleeping between 
the snow and the stars, with only God's hand to lead them, 
and the faith in him to uphold them, and the love of the dear 
ones to urge them on, — they made their difficult way, till, at 
last, in January, at Sorell, they overtook and greeted the lost. 
Who of us would not give some tears to see that meeting ? 
The captives were all redeemed, save three that had perished. 
Protected by a French guard they traveled back to Albany, in 
May. One day, a messenger appeared at Hatfield, and the 
news spread from house to house, awakening anxious inquiries, 
heart-throbs of new fear, and weepings of joy, that the res- 
cued prisoners were safe ! Two touching letters were brought, 
which were sent forward to Boston, were read publicly in 
the churches of the colony, where thanksgivings were oftered 
up, and with apostolic charity collections were taken for the 
ransom, for the heroes, and for their families. Benjamin Wait 
wrote from Albany to his Hatfield neighbors : " Any that iiave 



35 

love to our condition, let it move them to come and help us. 
We must come very softly, because of our wives and children. 
I pray you hasten. Stay not for the Sabbath, nor shoeing of 
horses. Stay not night nor day." The Hatfield people met 
the party at Kinderhook, and led them in with praises to God 
who " looseth the prisoners, and bringeth them by a way they 
have not known." 

In February, 1677, men and teams were ordered out to for- 
tify Hadley meeting-house as a place of refuge. The men 
continued to carry their guns and powder to meeting on the 
Lord's Day. The officers of the troops were quartered at Rev. 
Mr. Russell's house, where they appear to have consumed gen- 
erous quantities of what is not now always found in a parsonage 
— " divers barrels of beer, and much wine and fruit suitable." 

The Second Indian War, beginning in 16S8, the year that 
Gov. Andros made an official visit to Hadley, brought little 
destruction of life to this immediate vicinity, though it created 
disturbance and anxiety, and, having emptied Northfield a 
second time, left Hadley the northernmost town east of the 
River. A hunting party of Indians shot Richard Church, who 
was also hunting, one evening, near Mt. Warner, and in the 
morning his body, pierced with an arrow and bullet, and scalp- 
ed, was brought in to his widowed mother. The murderers 
were overtaken at Mt. Toby, tried in Court, and " shot to 
death." 

After this, the visits of natives to this township were only 
rare and harmless. In the succeeding wars, while other places 
in New England were exposed to annoyances and cruelties, 
Hadley was more and more exempt. In the middle of the last 
century, my great-grandmother, the wife of Capt. Moses Porter, 
who went north with his company in the French War, and was 
captured in a morning scout and killed near Lake George, 
mentioned, in letters written to her husband, that Indians 
troubled her in her solitude, prowling about the house at night, 
and sometimes showing their savage features at the windows. 
They were probably in search of plunder, not blood or scalps 
But with the captured husband, by Crown Point, the savages 
were dealing in all the most terrific cruelty of their savage- 



36 

ness ; — I cannot say brutality, for brute nature shows nothing 
so horrible. It was soon understood that there was some un- 
rnentioned mystery connected with Capt. Porter's fate. Grad- 
ually it was whispered by one of his companions that among 
other tortures not to be described,. the Indians actually drove 
sharpened sticks of pine into his flesh, and then setting these 
pitchy torches on fire broiled his body to the bones. Thank 
Heaven, his poor widow never tasted the added bitterness 
which a knowledge of this would have dashed into her grief: 
but she was a loving young wife, and it has often been said of 
her that she carried a mournful face to her old age and her 
grave. 

For the fame of the incident in our early annals which is most 
widely known, and which has done more than all beside to make 
Hadley historical, we are indebted, in about equal proportions, 
to two very different causes, — English politics, and man's univer- 
sal passion for the marvellous. My recent studies of the suf- 
ferings and fidelities of the men and women who conquered 
this wilderness, conquered its natural obstinacies and reluc- 
tances, conquered its forests, its solitude, its poverty, its frosts, 
its savages, conquered them by patience, by labor, by pain, 
by faith in Christ, have satisfied me that there were many 
among them, — their bodies now sleeping in yonder grave-yard, 
dust with dust, — their spirits risen from the rude dwellings 
they reared here into the immortal tabernacles not built with 
hands, — their sacred names found on no other tablet than your 
town records or perhaps missing even there, — many who deserve 
as well of our gratitude and admiration as William Goffe and 
Edward Whalley. Yet these also were patriots and friends of 
the people whom we love to remember, — fortunate perhaps in 
this, that the public service which exiled them and made them 
prisoners hidden from men for a few short years, lifted them 
up into the sight of after ages, and gave them an imperishable 
fame before the world. 

The restoration of Charles II. drove out of England most of 
the fifty-nine men who took the responsibility of signing the 
death warrant of his royal father, — that determined tyrant 
whom Dr. South in his sermons ever mentions as God's blessed 



37 

saint and martyr. Those of us who have — as I have — the 
blood of regicides in our veins, or who take history from the 
facts and not from court favorites or tory partisans, of course 
read Dr. Soutlj, with some grains of allowance, valuing his 
scorching invectives against Satan much more than his flowery 
flatteries of King Charles. Col. Whalley, a near relative of 
Cromwell himself, a merchant, turned by the stress of the times 
into a brave Puritan soldier, and Gen. Goffe, also in the Par- 
liamentary army, whose wife was Whalley's daughter, both 
judges and signers, reached Boston from London in 1660, and 
took up their residence openly near the college at Cambridge. 
Hutchinson, whose political bias did not let him overpraise 
them, says " they appeared grave, serious and devout, and the 
rank they had sustained commanded respect." When news 
arrived that all but seven of the regicides were to be pardoned, 
and that these two were not included, the solid men of Boston 
began to be shy of them. Gov. Endicott summoned the 
Court, who were slow to act, and before the warrant for their 
arrest was issued they had escaped to New Haven. There, by 
the help of three faithful friends, they were so effectually hid, 
sometimes in Rev. Mr. Davenport's house, sometimes in a cave, 
sometimes in a mill, as to outwit the royal messengers who 
pursued them, and even to elude the eyes of the neighbors, 
whom the large rewards offered might have tempted. At last, 
apprehensive that Mr. Davenport would have to suffer for their 
concealment, they came out and showed themselves in the 
street, thus releasing him from responsibility for traitors, and 
then retired to privacy again. At Milford, growing bolder, 
they held religious meetings, with a few prudent and godly 
persons, in their chamber. In 1664, on the arrival of fresh 
Commissioners at Boston, they betook themselves to their cave 
at West Rock. Some Indians reporting traces of them there, 
they fled to Hadley on foot, traveling only by night, and clan- 
destinely pitched what they called their " Ebenezer " in the 
walls of Rev. Mr. Russell's house, who was privately rewarded 
by English and American friends for harboring them, and who 
discharged his trust so kindly and faithfully, that one of them, 
Goffe, who survived his patient and uncomplaining father-in- 



38 

law, continued there some fifteen years in as much comfort as 
exile and confinement can ever be expected to afford. Mr. 
Judd supposes that when the Russell house was filled by the 
colonial officers, the regicides were temporarily removed to 
the house of Samuel Smith or Peter Tilton, or some other of 
the few trusty persons in the secret. The general belief was 
that they had left the country. Once they read English ac- 
counts of their execution, sitting comfortably in their chamber. 
Probably men were never more relieved at hearing of their 
own death. Their monotonous days were much occupied in 
writing, their diaries giving full particulars of all affairs in the 
neighborhood, reported to them in their retirement. Their 
hope of final deliverance was based on an interpretation of the 
Apocalyptic prophecies. Goffe carried on an affectionate 
secret correspondence with his wife in England, — the two 
sometimes writing respectively under the names of Walter and 
Frances Goldsmith, and as son and mother.* Hutchinson adds 

*I cannot refrain from giving in full the following affecting and remarkable 
letter to Goffe, from his wife, in 1662, found in an appendix to one of the 
volumes of Hutchinson : — 

" My Dearest Hart : — I have been exceedingly refresht with your choyce 
and precious letter of the 29th May, 1662. Those scriptures you mention, 
through mercy, Avith many others, are a great support and comfort to me in 
this day of my great affliction. Through grace, I doe experience the Lord's 
presence in supporting and providing for mee and mine, in this evill day. 
The preservation of yourselfe and my deare father, next to the light of his 
own countenance, is the choycest mercy that I enjoy. For to hear of your 
wellfare gives, as it Avere, a new life to me. Ah ! what am I, poor worm, 
that the great God of heaven and earth should continue such mercys to me 
and mine, as I at this day enjoy. Many others have lost their deare youke- 
fellowcs, and out of all hopes to see them in this life ; but that is not my con- 
dition, as yet, blessed be his holy name, for he hath made mee hope in his 
word. 10 Zech. 9. — And I will soru them among the people, and they shall re- 
member me infarre countryes, and they shall live with their children and turne 
againe. Persecution begins to be high heere, the bishop's courts are up as high 
as ever. But wee have the promises of a faithfull God to live upon, and he 
hath said. To you it is given not only to believe but to suffer. He hath alsoe 
promised to lay noe more upon his poore people than he will give strength 
to beare. Oh my Hart ! I doe, with my whole soule, blesse the Lord for his 
unspeakable goodness to you and your deare friend, in that he hath been 
pleased to appeare soe eminently for your preservation. He brings to the 
grave and raises up againe. Oh that the experience that wee have daj'ly of 
his goodness may make us trust him for the future. Wee have scene that 
word in the 5th of Job in some measure made good to you. Reade the 12th 
verse ; from the 11th to the end of the chapter, there is much comfort to those 
in our condition ; as alsoe in 91 Psal. O my deare, let us henceforth make 
the Lord our refuge and our trust, and then he shall cover us with his feathers, 



39 

significantly : " There is too much religion in their letters for 
the taste of the present day." We here may thank God there 

and be a sanctuary to thee wheresoever he shall cast thee. I mention these 
scriptures because I have found comfort in them, and I hoped thou wouldest 
doe soe too. I shall now give you an account of your family as farre as I dare. 
Through mercy, I and your little ones are in reasonable health, only Betty 
and Nan are weakely, and I feare will be lame a little, the others are very 
lusty. I am yet with my aunt, but how soon she may be forst to give up 
housekeeping I know not, (tor she is warned in to the bishop's court,) and 
wee shall be disperst ; but I hope the Lord will provide for us, as he hath 
done hitherto. — Oh my deare, lett our trust be in the Lord alone. I do 
heartily wish myself with thee, but that I feare it may bee a meanes to dis- 
cover thee, as it was to and therefore I shall forbeare attempting such a 

thing for the present, hopeing that the Lord will, in his owne time, return 
thee to us againe ; for he hath the harts of all in his hands and can change 
them in a moment. I rejoice to hear that you are so willing to be at the 
Lord's disposall ; indeed, we are not our own, for we are bought with a price, 
with the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. And, therefore, let us comfort 
ourselves with this, though we should never meete in this world againe. Yet 
I hope, through grace, wee shall meete in heaven, and soe ever be with the 
Lord, and it will "not be in the power of men to part us. My dear, I know 
you are confident of my affection ; yet give me leave to tell thee, thou art as 
deare to me as a husband can be to a wife, and if I knew anything I could 
doe to make you happy, I should do it, if the Lord would permitt, though to 
the losse of ray life. As for newes I shall foi'bear writing of any, for I know 
not much and you may heare it from better hands. My uncle Burket is dead, 
and my mother is with her. My brother John is gon "beyond sea, but I know 
not whither. His father-in-law is dead. My deare, my aunt and many 
others are very kinde to mee, soe that, through mercy, I have noe want of 
food and rayment, though in a meane way. The Lord is pleased to suit my 
mind to my condition, and to give mee strength, in some measure, to take 
pains with my children, whichl look upon as a great mercy. I know not 
whether I may ever have another opportunity to send to you this season or 
noe, which makes me the longer now ; for I shall not send but by those I 
judge to be faithfull, and I being in the country, I may not heare of every op- 
portunity, and, thouo-h it is an unspeakable comfort to mee to heare of thy 
wellfare, yet I earnestly beg of thee not to send too often, for feare of the 
worst, for they are very vigilant here to find out persons. But this is my 
comfort, it is not in the power of men to act their owne will. And now, my 
dear, with 1000 tears, I take my leave of thee, and recommend thee to the 
great keeper of Israeli, who neither slumbers nor sleepes, who, I hope, will 
keepe thee, and my dear friend with thee, from all your enemies, both spirit- 
uall and temporal!, and in his owne time return you with safety to your fani- 
ily. AVhich is the dayly prayer of thy affectionate and obedient wife, till 
death. ^• 

" Many friends here desire to be remembered to you. It will not be con- 
venient to name them. I am sure you have a stock of prayers going for 
you here, which you and I reap the benefit of. My humble duty presented 
to you know who. . 

" Frederick and the rest of thy dear babes that can speak, present their 
humble duty to thee, talk much of thee, and long to see thee. 

« My humble duty to my dear father, and tell him I pray for him with my 
whole heart, but I am soe bad a scribe, I dare not write to him. 

" Pray be private and careful who you trust." 



40 

was no less, for their consolation and our instruction, — the re- 
ligion that believes in God, loves freedom and serves mankind.* 
In 1792, Stiles was shown by Rev. Samuel Hopkins the reg- 
icide's room in Rev. Mr. Russell's house, then standing, with 
the closet behind the chimney, having a trap door or sliding 
board, communicating through a private passage with the cel- 
lar, to be resorted to in case of surprise, — and as tradition says 
once actually used, while those conducting the search walked 
over the floor. The prevailing accounts have been that the 
bodies of both of the Judges were buried in Hadley, — one about 
the premises of Mr. Russell, and the other in the cellar, gar- 
den, or houselot, of Peter Tilton, — some rods below on the 
same side of the main street. The Russell estate has been 
directly transmitted from that family through Isaac Chauncy, 
the second minister, his son Josiah Chauncy, two Samuel Gay- 
lords, father and son, to Chester Gay lord, now living on the 
spot. Mr. Gaylord remembers that at the rebuilding, in 1795, 
the bones of a large human skeleton, much decomposed, were 
found under a flat stone, with the remains of a coffin, behind 
the front cellar wall. Beyond question, these were the re- 
mains of Whalley, the sturdy old King Killer, buried one hun- 
dred and twenty years before. On exposure to the air, the de- 
cayed fragments crumbled into dust, fine as that of the sum- 
mer threshing floor, which the wind driveth away ;f another 
fit theme for Hamlet and Horatio at the grave of poor Yorick, 
the King's jester. The Puritan Republican was no jester for 
a king, quite otherwise than that ; he was in solemn, awful 
earnest ; his word for the tyrant was the axe, though it should 
afterwards fall on his own neck or sever his own heartstrings. 
That uncovered skull was no " Cain's jaw-bone that did mur- 
der ;" no " pate of a politician," " one that might circumvent 
God," nor of a courtier who could say " Good morrow, sweet 
lord," nor of " my lord such-a-one that praised my lord such- 

*President Stiles dedicates his history of the Judges " To all the Patrons 
of real, perfect and unpolluted liberty." 

f A tooth has been preserved, and was shown to the audience by the 
speaker, through the kindness of the President of the Day, in whose posses- 
sion it remains. 



41 

a-one's horse when he meant to beg it." Nor have we only to 
mutter in some poor, cynical moralizing of despair, 

" Imperious Ca3sar, dead and turned to clay, 
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away ; 
O, that the earth, which kept the world in awe, 
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw !" 

— but to sing in tones of triumphant thanksgiving with Lu- 
ther's old martyr-hymn, — 

" Flung to the heedless winds, 

Or on the waters cast. 
Their ashes shall be watched 

And gathered at the last ; 
And from that scattered dust 

Around us and abroad 
•Shall spring a plenteous seed 

Of witnesses for God. 
Still, still tho' dead, they speak, 

And trumpet tongued proclaina 
To many a wakening land 

The one availing Name." 

Would that we had a handful of that sacred dust here to-day, 
that we might inurn it, and keep it as a Christian talisman in 
the village Pastor's study, as long as Christ has a minister here 
to preach the Gospel that is deliverance to the captive, and the 
opening of prison-doors to the bound ! 

Of Goffe's grave nothing is known. That mystery ends in 
mystery. The young girls of the last century, that used to 
shudder and whisper, as they ran, after dark, by Peter Tilton's 
garden, lest the apparition of the honest and brave old martyr 
should rise up to chase them, had hardly more reason for alarm 
from the quiet sleeper's spirit than the damsel of old that 
hearkened at the gate for the angel of the Apostle. This on- 
ly we know, that both the prisoners passed at length out of 
their weary prison-house, through a door that opens into a 
larger than any human liberty, and, having the Good Shepherd 
to lead them, walk in Paradise with the sons of God. 

One thing is quite clear from this history. The men and 
women that were here before us knew how to keep a secret. 
Their talent in that kind, considering the quick instinct that 



42 

detects and attacks mysteries, and all the chances of exposure, 
is one of the real wonders of the past. Rev. Mr. Hopkins 
says he had heard an old man say that older men had told him, 
that a search was once made for the regicides in all the houses 
of Hadley ; but that " they searched as if they searched not." 
It was, as everybody knows, in the attack of the Indians on 
the town, Sept. 1, 1675, a Day of Fasting, and while the peo- 
ple were assembled in their meeting house, that Goffe, willing 
to incur the sacrifice of exposing his own life to the double 
enemy — one here in the bushes, and another on the British 
throne — came suddenly forth from his hiding-place, and by 
valor and skill arraying the affrighted worshippers in ranks, 
and putting himself at their head, drove the assailants back. 
Considerations of policy fully account for the obscure allu- 
sions in the contemporaneous records. The principal correc- 
tion supplied by modern investigations touches the question, 
at what precise spot the encounter took place. Mr. Judd ju- 
diciously suggests the extreme improbability that a small body 
of Indians would pass by the houses, barns and cattle of the 
village, to " surround " a meeting house full of armed men. 
The engagement probably occurred further east, before the 
Indians entered the street. This accords with a traditional 
feature of the story, which I heard for the first time last win- 
ter. An aged woman, in a remote part of the town, says she 
had heard that Goft'e saw the Indians entering the town from 
the mountains at a distance. Now, from Stiles' plan of Rus- 
sell's house, we know that the regicide's chamber projected 
eastward, looking at once east, north and south. While the 
people were all gone to meeting, the solitary captive would 
feel a degree of security in sitting at his window, which at 
that season might be open. There descrying the approach of 
the skulking savages, who would not suspect an observation 
from this elevated post, and who probably thought every man 
to be inside the meeting house, Goffe would, we may imagine, 
apprize the congregation at once of their danger, and throw 
himself in with the men as they rushed out from their inter- 
rupted devotions. Everything in this theory is consistent and 
probable. 



43 

Let us pass to some more particular notices of the character 
of our ancestors. The records of the early Courts show that 
the Hadley people of both sexes were sensitive in respect to 
their reputations. In 1662, a person by the name of Fellowes 
sued a Dutch woman bearing the suspicious designation of 
Judith Varlett, for calling him a rogue. The cases of crime 
or serious immorality were very rare, and the village exhibited 
an almost uniform integrity, order and religious self-control. 
Slander was one of the most frequent causes of prosecution, 
and that not so frequent as one would expect if the offence 
were made actionable at all. So far as appears, there never 
was but one divorce case in the town. May our lovers and 
maidens always be so careful and so true, and our homes so 
righteous and pure, and flirts and scoundrels so scarce, that 
there never shall be another ! Husband and wife were some- 
times separated, however, before they were married. That is, 
the old-time frolic of stealing away the bride, just before the 
wedding ceremony, by the sudden appearance of a party of 
uninvited neighbors, in revenge for their neglect, and keeping 
her hidden or locked up till an invitation was forthcoming — 
was one of the rude merry-makings of these neighborhoods, 
in their fun-loving moods. The last victim of this bride-rob- 
bery seems to have been Elizabeth Smith, daughter of Oliver, 
married in 17S3 to Doctor Marsh, who bore also the name of 
Job, and who evidently needed his patriarchal namesake's pa- 
tience before he recovered the stolen property. Gershom 
Hawkes suffered prosecution in 1682 for having in his posses- 
sion a pack of cards, and also for traveling till twelve o'clock 
on the night before the Sabbath. A man was fined for saying 
" so it seems " in " a scoffing manner " to Justice Partridge in 
the court room, lighting his pipe with the tongs, and other 
tokens of disrespect. The law undertook to secure simplicity 
in female dress. Five wives and one maid of the best quality 
in the town were fined or admonished in 1673 for wearing silk. 
Sometimes the quantity or a flaunting manner of wearing silk 
is specified. It does not appear that mere circumference was 
made a circumstance of guilt. A silk hood and scarf " some- 
thing worn " were produced in court. There can be hardly a 



44 

bolder sign of rugged democratic equality than those suits in 
the name of Christian morality, against respectable families. 
But social morality is rarely clear of all one-sidedness ; and 
there was obviously a disproportion between the zeal against 
the women's wardrobes and the men's decanters and tobacco 
boxes. Perhaps there was finally a compromise between the 
sideboard and the toilet-table, for it is clear that the women 
had their way, sometimes wearing other ornaments than " a 
meek and quiet spirit" even into court on their trial, and will- 
ing, apparently, to pay, if necessary, not only the bills of the 
dry goods merchant, but the charges of the magistrate. In 
the town itself lawyers never flourished. It helps to show the 
thrift and industry of our beginnings, that for a hundred years 
Hadley had only eight or ten persons, all told, that needed 
public relief as paupers. Some of these were " boarded 
round" by turns in the families. The inhuman resort of put- 
ting them up to the lowest bidder, auctioneering wretched- 
ness, came in later, and, to our Christian credit, went out not 
long after it came in. 

A large part of the Town Records is taken up with the terri- 
torial matters belonging to the " Inner Commons," — the com- 
mon lands lying eastward of the " New Swamp," ending three 
and a quarter miles from the meeting-house, and stretching 
from Holyoke to Mill River. Many difficulties and readjust- 
ments occurred from time to time, in connection with the 
distribution of these commons to the private ownership of 
the inhabitants. It would be unprofitable to follow these 
complicated transactions. At the beginning of the last cen- 
tury there were about three score and ten families, — all liv- 
ing on the Broad street, or on the north highway leading out 
of it, except the miller at North Hadley. These took their 
shares of the divided lands by lot. An acre of " Inner Commons" 
was valued at a shilling, or even less. Occasional Indian 
invasions, or rumors of them, kept back the settlement of Am- 
herst through a quarter of that century. A few " outer" grants 
were made south of Holyoke much earlier. Most of South Had- 
ley was then a pasture for horses and cattle ; and deer and wild 



45 

turkeys were seen darting through the forests.* At first, the 
settlers in these south and east sections were thought to be very 
hardy and enterprising people to attempt to get a living on such 
distant and barren uplands, and were welcomed with mingled 
feelings of wonder and gratitude, when, on Sundays, they gath- 
ered back to the old hive to worship. It is said some tender- 
hearted fathers and mothers actually shed tears over their sons 
and daughters, and implored the mercy of Heaven on their ven- 
turesomeness,whenthey went off to settle in the woods or "outer 
commons " of South Hadley ! The house of the first settler at 
Hockanum, Capt. John Lyman, from Northampton, is still 
standing. A well known character, called " silly Peter Domo," 
had a house under Mount Holyoke, on the south end of Law- 
rence's Plain, two miles from any neighbor, where he lived a 
curious frontier life, and kept sheep for the town. Very un- 
like Socrates of old in intellectual furniture, he resembled him 
in domestic politics, being notoriously quite as much subject to 
Mrs. Domo, as the sheep of his flock were to him. The beautiful 
Island opposite " Old Rainbow Meadow," now owned by a 
North Hadley farmer, began to form early in the last century, 
took on grass about a hundred years ago, and was sold by the 
province to Solomon Stoddard for one hundred pounds. 

In the last century hundreds of people came in, in the 
spring, to fish for salmon and shad, some say fifteen hundred 
men at once, carrying away bags of the fish on horseback. 
The shad were so plenty that ihey were often thrown back in- 
to the water as worthless. It was considered disreputabhi to 
eat them, indicating poverty. Mr. Judd tells of a family that 
being surprised at dinner hid the shad under the table. I can 
match this with a family anecdote of one of the Porters who 
happened to like shad, and ordered his negro to watch his op- 
portunity on the river bank, and when no one should be looking 
silp a shad under his frock. Old fishermen have told of three 
thousand shad taken at a haul at South Hadley Falls. The 
principal stations above Holyoke were at the south end of the 

* The Holyoke track of the Amherst and Granby road, by " Round Hill," 
■was called " Turkey Pass." Turkeys have been shot by sportsmen like Paul 
Wright in our own day. 



46 

Main street, and at Forty Acres, by the present ferry. When 
shad rose in value they were sold for a penny apiece. The 
fishing season was a time of company, frolic, and practical jok- 
ing, on both sides of the river. 

South Hadley was made a separate precinct in 1733; Am- 
herst in 1734; and Granby was incorporated as a town, being 
set off from South Hadley, in 1768. In the permission granted 
by the mother town to both South Hadley and Amherst, the 
express condition was affixed that they should "settle a good 
orthodox minister." 

The founder of our Academy was Edward Hopkins, a noble- 
souled, princely merchant of London, who in 1637 exchanged 
his splendid and hospitable mansion in England for the hard- 
ships of the infant colony. Quincy says of him, "Few if any 
of the early emigrants to New England have left a name sur- 
rounded by a purer or more unfading lustre," and adds, that in 
coming to this country he had no less exalted an aim than 
to " plant a church and state approaching to that model of 
perfection which he had conceived in fancy."* If he failed of 
so magnificent a design, he certainly contributed, out of his 
great estate, his large heart, refined intelligence and elegant 
manners, to lay the best foundations of social welfare, in the 
education and religion of the people of New England. Re- 
fusing the inducements held out to him to settle in Massachu- 
setts, he accompanied Davenport and Eaton to Connecticut, 
and became Governor of the Colony, taking an active share in 
forming its Constitution and serving as " one of the Commis- 
sioners who formed the articles of Confederation of the United 
Colonies of New England in 1643, the precursor of the con- 
federation which nearly a century and a half afterwards was 
the instrument of American Independence." Administrative 
ability, public and private integrity, a cheerful courage amidst 
domestic griefs, wealth generously lavished for Christ and man, 
a severe and steadfast piety, these were the qualities and aims 
which made his career eminent and admirable, and placed him 
as so brilliant a figure in our annals. On his return to England 

* History of Harvard University, Vol. I. page 168. 



47 

he passed through a series of high offices in the Government 
of Cromwell, and became a member of Parliament. The pres- 
ent value of his bequest to Harvard College is thirty thousand 
dollars. This legacy was invested in lands of the town of Hop- 
kinton, taking its name from the donor. 

Hadley shared with New Haven and Hartford in the Hopkins' 
Fund for Grammar Schools. For some reason not fully ex- 
plained, but probably owing to the poverty of the Institution 
at that time and the interest of the churches in it, it was agreed 
by the Trustees that Harvard College should receive from Had- 
ley, as lying in Massachusetts, a considerable portion of what 
would otherwise be the Hadley share. Rev. John Davenport 
of New Haven was one of the two original Trustees, William 
Goodwin of Hadley being the other. Yale College was not 
founded till the beginning of the eighteenth century, and was 
either not vigilant enough or not early enough in the field 
as a competitor with Cambridge. The grant of land made to 
the School by the Town in 1667, called "School Meadow," 
containing the Indian burial ground, was originally of about 
sixty acres, but by the liberal action of the River now in- 
cludes about one hundred and forty acres.* The grist mill 
at School Meadow was built by the Hopkins funds. The first 
" Committee," or Board of Trustees, consisted of six leading 
citizens. Other donations came in from other quarters. A 
vexing controversy, on the question whether this "Grammar" 
School should be turned into an " English " School soon after 
agitated the town, — Rev. Mr. Russell and about a dozen others 
standing for the old plan, but a majority being eager, and even 
passionate, for a change. The matter found its way into the 
courts, disturbed the neighborhood, and was finally settled by 
appeal to the Council House in Boston, — Dudley being Presi- 
dent, — in favor of Russell and the original scheme. Mention 
is made of "the hot and raised spirit of the people of Hadley," 
and it appears that the sun arose if it did not " go down " upon 
their wrath ; for notice is given of one public meeting that was 
held in the morning when the sun was only a quarter of an hour 

* The average rent at which this whole meadow was let out, for half a cen- 
tury, was six or eight pounds per annum. 



48 

high. The most influential person in the defeated party was 
Samuel Partrigg, or Partridge, who afterwards removed to Hat- 
field. He is said to have been, — after Pynclion's death in 
Springfield — the most conspicuous man of the County. He 
had a license to "sell liquors for the helpfulness of his neigh- 
bours," and that certainly needs considerable talent. He was 
handled sharply on the school question, by the Court of Ses- 
sions, and at last bidden " to seek his own peace." 

This was the first occasion when the Hadley people discov- 
ered a gift for division and disputation. To a considerable 
extent, it was an honest difference of judgment between those 
who appreciated the advantage of an elevated literary cul- 
ture, or "Grammar" training — including classical studies — 
for the whole surrounding country, on the one side, and those 
who clung to town privileges and the plain elementary educa- 
tion of their children, on the other. The school afterwards 
kept its "Grammar" character, and did not lose it when, in 
1817, it became an Academy. 

The first schoolmaster was Caleb Watson, of Roxbury, who 
seems to have come about 1766. The first salary mention- 
ed was thirty pounds per annum. The second teacher bore the 
patronymic of Younglove, and was a preacher. The school was 
kept at first in the private house of Nathaniel Ward, on the 
Broad street, near where Mr. Giles E. Smith lives now. A school 
house was built on the same street in 1796. Most of the teachers 
from the beginning were recent college graduates, and instruct- 
ed in Greek and Latin as well as the English branches, that is, 
the Hornbook, Primer, Catechism, Psalter and Testament, with 
a little Accidence and Arithmetic. Among those of the first 
half century I find the names of Russell, Partrigg, Mather, Sal- 
mon Treat, Hubbard, Chauncey and John Partridge of Hatfield, 
Aaron Porter of Hadley, Elisha Williams, in 1726 made Pres- 
dent of Yale College, Ebenezer Gay, afterwards minister of 
Hingham, Solomon Williams, afterwards minister at Lebanon, 
Connecticut, and Daniel Dwight of Northampton, — as honora- 
ble a catalogue as it would be easy to find belonging to any 
similar institution. Girls at first attended the school only in 
small numbers. Mr. Judd thinks not one New Emrland woman 



49 

in a dozen could write her name, one hundred and fifty years 
ago. Now nearly as many as that write poetry for the news- 
papers. 

Throughout its whole history, Hadley has been worthily dis- 
tinguished for its liberal interest in the cause of education. I 
find from the annals of Harvard College, that in 1669, when 
the public spirit of the entire colony was appealed to for con- 
tributions to aid in erecting a new college building at Cam- 
bridge, and thus to extend the influence of that favorite seat of 
Puritan learning and piety, — for which sacrifices had been 
made elsewhere of almost ludicrous simplicity and minuteness, 
solemn enough when we think of the souls that gave and the 
souls for whom the gifts were made, one man giving a few 
sheep, another a pewter flagon, another a silver-tipped jug, 
another a salt cellar, and another a sugar spoon, and many a 
peck of corn apiece, — the people of Hadley gave thirty-three 
pounds fifteen shillings and three pence, which was more than 
any other town west of Watertown gave, and nearly twice as 
much as Springfield or Northampton. 

Reference has been made to superstition. That mournful and 
destructive form of moral hallucination, which had long been 
blighting parts of the old world, and which broke out toward 
the close of the seventeenth century in the staid and earnest 
religious mind of New England, found but few victims along 
the valley of the Connecticut. Either our predecessors in this 
region were too sound in their mental constitution, or had too 
much on their hands, to give themselves up to disgusting con- 
flicts that allowed no honest, direct resistance. An invisible, 
impalpable abstraction of a black cat may very reasonably be 
postponed to a live, red, muscular, yelling savage, with a musket 
in his hands and a tomahawk and a torch in his belt. 

Nevertheless, when the pressure of Indian hostilities yielded 
a little, the delusion crept in and left a few wretched families. 
At Springfield the misery was great, as many of my audience 
have learned from the engaging pages of a popular historical 
fiction, where the names of Parsons and Moxon are made as 



50 

familiar as household words.* To the credit either of our lo- 
cal subjects or of the Boston juries, no one of the possessed that 
were sent from this region for trial was visited with capital pun- 
ishment. Even the story-telling genius of Widow Noble — the 
romantic heroine of a real love story, who from the brilliant 
beauty of her youth became a town mendicant in her old age — 
had to travel far from home to find the dark materials of those 
thrilling midnight legends that curdled the blood and lifted the 
hair of her young listeners, sending them to hide under the bed- 
clothes, with the feeling that there was a nest of scowling mon- 
sters in every corner of the room and a demon behind every bed 
post. Only three persons of this valley appear to have been seri- 
ously implicated, and only one of these as exercising the power 
of the spell. Moll Webster, a termagant pauper, living on the 
middle meadow lane, just in the rear of the house now occupied 
by Mr. Bell, where the old town's poor-house stood, and who was 
accused of a variety of infernal malpractices, was doubtless formi- 
dable enough with her tongue ; but the infirmities of her temper 
could evidently be accounted for without resorting to the nether 
world. She was accused of bringing the oxen to a sudden stand 
as they passed her door on the way into the meadow ; but the 
whips of the teamsters, applied inside the house, were said to dis- 
pel the enchantment. Unquestionably there was one instance of 
real and tragical distress, occasioned by the notions then current 
about this same Moll Webster, who after all came out of her 
trial at Boston with an honorable acquittal. 

One of the most esteemed and trusty men of the community,! 
a deacon of the church, a lieutenant in the troops, the ancestor 
of a large posterity always holding a high place in the town, 
died of some inscrutable disorder, attended with unusual and 
violent symptoms. The credulity of the time pronounced him 
witch-struck by Mary Webster's enchantments while the good 
man was relieving her destitution with charity. Those who 
would read the revolting particulars may find them detailed in 
" Mather's Magnalia " as the seventh of his fourteen instances 
of the " Wonders of the Invisible World." It appears that 

*" The Bay Path." f Philip Smith, -//^.t^-^c. w ll>^c»y{X^<y,. ci ^ 



51 

there were several " brisk lads," who were disposed to trace 
the mischief no farther back than the will of a woman who was 
either weak or wicked. With more zeal than gallantry, and 
more indignation than mercy, they " dragged her out of the 
house, hung her up until she was near dead, let her down, rolled 
her some time in the snow, and at last buried her in it, and there 
left her," — after which she lived eleven years in quiet. Col. 
Sam. Partridge, magistrate, evidently took a very rationalistic 
view of the whole matter. His recipe for a complaint of witch- 
craft was ten stripes of a whip on the back of the accuser. 

It is one of the saddest aspects of all this humiliating delu- 
sion of the human mind, that it owed its prevalence and energy 
so largely to a few prominent, influential, educated men, grossly 
open to imposition, and mistaking a fear of phantoms for a 
righteous regard to realities. The whole bewilderment may be 
taken for a solemn illustration of the responsibility connected 
with our susceptibility to supernatural impressions ; as a warning 
against all foolish tamperings with that world of secrets, which 
God hath kept in his own power ; as a plea for a practical, hum- 
ble, scriptural faith, working by love in the world that now is, 
as the sure preparation for the things that we must wait to see 
opened in the world that is to come. " The secret things be- 
long unto the Lord our God ; but those things which are re- 
vealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we should 
do all the words of this law." 

This Faith, scriptural, humble, practical, we find in our fore- 
fathers, with little alloy, and never lost. The history of the 
Church, in almost any of these New England towns, is the his- 
tory of the town itself; for the whole New England movement 
and settlement had a religious basis. Faith was the spring of it. 
Everything was done, in the deep and primary motive, for the 
glory of God. There was a valiant, reverential piety in the 
commonest acts. The Hebrew theocracy was the model of the 
Commonwealth. Even the raising of ordinary buildings was 
often begun with a prayer to Jehovah. And when the religious 
service was omitted on occasions where we now perform it, un- 



52 

der the apparent contradiction there was often a real theological 
consistency. Thus, in the first half-century, there was no sort 
of religious act, no prayer, at funerals. But this was doubtless 
omitted from a violent repugnance to the Romish superstition 
of prayers for the souls of the dead. The company of Massa- 
chusetts Bay wrote to Gov. Endicott and his Council, in their 
first letter of instructions, " For that the propagating of the 
Gospel is the thing we do profess above all to be our aim in set- 
tling this plantation, we have been careful to make plentiful pro- 
vision of godly ministers, by whose faithful preaching and ex- 
emplary life we trust not only those of our own nation will be 
built up in the knowledge of God, but also the Indians may, in 
God's appointed time, be reduced to the obedience of the Gos- 
pel of Christ." 

It is an honorable distinction that the first Church organized 
on the River north of Springfield was at Hadley. Northamp- 
ton was a year later, though settled earlier. Nearly all the first 
settlers were church-members, consistent and godly men, as em- 
inent for piety as they confessedly were for general intelligence. 
Conspicuous among them were the two deacons, Nathaniel 
Dickinson and Peter Tilton. Meetings for worship were held 
at first in a private dwelling. The order for the first meeting- 
house was passed by the town in December, 1661. This sanc- 
tuary was not finished till the year 1670. It stood in the great 
street, very near where we are how met, on an elevation of land, 
since levelled away, called " meeting-house hill," — being placed 
so near the north end to accommodate the people west of the 
River. Its hundred and twenty-eight seats for adults were all 
taken at once. Each " seat " probably accommodated several 
persons, — high pews not being yet introduced. The sexes were 
separated, not with a high partition, as is sometimes seen among 
the Quakers, but in the distribution of the audience. The men 
generally sat on the minister's right, and the women on his left. 
The juvenile portion were put by themselves, and sticks were 
set up at intervals with " fit persons " to use them, " as occa- 
sion should require," on the disorderly. Galleries were voted 
at the end of the century. The singing was Congregational, 



Erratum. 
Page 53, first line, read public singing " of hymns." 



53 

as all public singing ought to be. A bell was bought 

for twenty-five dollars, and paid for in winter wheat at three 
shillings a bushel. What is the contribution that any of us 
here would not cheerfully make, to-day, for any mysterious re- 
cu[)erative phonographic art, that should call up from some hid- 
den Holyoke dell, or some nook by the river-bed, a slumbering 
echo of that holy sound, for the first time shaking the still Sun- 
day morning air of this valley, or dying away, over the river, 
and calling the reverent worshippers to prayer ? The bell-tower 
was on the centre of a four-sided roof so that the bell-rope was 
pulled in the centre of the main aisle. In 1676 it was ordered 
" to ring the bell at nine o'clock at night, through the year." 

This first meeting-house resounded with the preaching and 
praises of the strong, pure worship of our ancestors, forty-seven 
years. In 1713, at a town meeting, — for the town was then 
the Parish, — order was given to Mr. Samuel Porter, Lieut. Ne- 
hemiah Dickinson, Sergeant Daniel Marsh, Peter Montague and 
Samuel Barnard, committee, to superintend the erection of a new 
meeting-house, fifty feet by forty, " in the middle of the town 
street." Neither that nor its predecessor was dedicated. Such 
a ceremony was then hardly known. In 1739, Col. Eleazar 
Porter, by permission, erected a new pulpit and sounding-board, 
at his own cost. The balcony, or steeple, was built up from 
the ground, on the north side, and was the first of that con- 
struction in Hampshire County. Open seats only gradually 
gave place to pews, which, though uncarpeted and uncushioned, 
were considered aristoratic, and could be put up only by vote 
of the town, which was hard to be got. The seating of the 
people was done by a committee, and as the order of arrange- 
ment was not based upon the scripture rule of precedence, giv- 
ing the best the "lowest room," — but upon estate, as well as 
age, it gave rise to some jealousy, and occasionally to an un- 
seemly contention. Even " age," as a title to priority, might 
possibly disturb some sensitive natures, as it could hardly be ex- 
pected with all persons, and both sexes, that there would not be 
an internal struggle between the advantage of a high seat and 
the public disclosure of the precise number of years. In this 



54 

building there was at least one wedding, — that of Sarah Porter 
and David Hillhouse, about 1781.* The first trace of a dis- 
tinct choir of singers in the gallery appears in 1772. The spire 
seems not to have been carried completely up till 1753, when 
it was crowned by the same copper weather-cock which still 
surmounts the steeple of the later house, now standing in the 
Middle Street, and which has breasted every wind that blew 
for more than a hundred years. It has known but two other 
movements, viz : when two young men climbed to it by night, 
in 1803, and stole it from its perch, as a feat of mischievous 
skill, and in its journey from one street to another, in 1841. 
In the high negro-seats, at the corners, above the galleries, might 
be seen the well-known Ralph Way and other black worthies. 
The commanding figure of Joshua Boston, owned in the Porter 
family, a person of such gentlemanly dignity that it is said pas- 
sengers stopped to notice him in the street, — who always carried 
his wife's reticule to meeting from his sense of breeding, and 
was thought to bear a resemblance to Gen. Washington, — re- 
fused to take a place in this enclosure for color, and persisted 
in sitting in the porch, even at the risk of church discipline. 
He was valued at twenty pounds : — a moderate price for so fine 
a specimen of a body, — not reckoning the soul, which, possibly, 
was not owned at all, save by that Lord of whose spiritual body 
in the Church he was a member. 

George Whitfield preached once in Hadley, in 1740. One 
of the great days of the century it must have been. Hatfield 
refused to let him come there ; but it is said some people heard 
the new-light theology ringing in his clarion voice, across the 
river. 

As you all know, the first minister. Rev. John Russell, came 
with his flock from Wethersfield, — having their full confidence 
as to the validity of the ordinances, and all other matters of 

*This ceremony is remembered by a lady present at the celebration, who 
says the bridegroom wore a white coat. This lady is the daughter of a citi- 
zen who gave Hadley the distinction of having the first scythe made in it 
ever manufactured on this side of the Atlantic, — Benjamin Colt. One of his 
descendants is well known on both continents as an inventor, and the master 
of a great establishment in the manufacture of pistols, at Hartford, Ct. 



55 

aith and of practice. In their jealousy of preferments and their 
economy of titles his people rarely wrote " Reverend " before 
his name ; but reverence for him, in his person and his office, 
was written on their hearts, and there was no lack in him of 
every ministerial quality, including practical skillas well as evan- 
gelical fidelity, — a shrewd economy in the things of this world 
as well as a zealous testimony for the inheritance to come. He 
was every way worthy of his charge ; a scholar, graduated at 
Harvard College in 1645, in the third class sent out from that 
Institution, — then commonly called " the School of the Proph- 
ets." That he was zealous and faithful as a Pastor there is 
every evidence. That he was independent and fearless in his 
loyalty to duty appears from his course, not always popular, at 
Wethersfield, and his firm behaviour in reference to the trust 
and management of the Hopkins School. That he was at once 
strong in his attachments and sagacious in affairs, is proved by 
his untiring devotedness and consummate skill in the protection 
of the regicides. That he was publicly esteemed as a preacher 
is indicated by his appointment to preach the Election Sermon 
in 1665. I take the liberty to say, — here among neighbors, — 
that I count it among my best ancestral honors to be descended, 
through my mother, from Mr. Russell's third wife, Phebe Greg- 
son, — Phebe Whiting by her first marriage, — asking no other 
warrant for her goodness than that she was the chosen compan- 
ion of two good divines ; nor for her talents and those of her 
two predecessors as housewives, than the fact that on a salary 
ranging from eighty to ninety pounds a year, paid mostly in pro- 
duce, her husband, besides supporting his family, educating two 
sons, discharging all debts, providing for funeral charges and 
tombstones, and delivering to his wife Phebe about one hundred 
pounds sterling, which was more than she brought him, left to 
his children £S30. The only items I could wish out of the in- 
ventory of the estate are " three negroes, a man, woman and 
child." 

The second settled minister was Rev. Isaac Chauncey of 
Stratford Ct. grandson of the second president of Harvard Col- 
lege, where he was himself graduated in 1693. He was or- 



56 

dained about 1C9G, The parish gave him the home lot and 
buildings of Mr. Russell, the former pastor, and twenty acres 
of meadow land " to him and his heirs forever," a salary of 
eighty pounds and his firewood. There is every reason to be- 
lieve he fulfilled the high calling of his office conscientiously; 
a lover of peace, not excelling in doctrinal discrimination, but 
dwelling happily among his own people. One of his four pub- 
lished sermons is on the vanity of superficial religion ; another, 
preached ut the funeral of Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, 
is spoken of as showing more taste and learning than was com- 
mon at the time. A tragical occurrence took place in his fam- 
ily in the loss of the reason and the life of his son Israel, a 
young minister of education and promise, who became de- 
ranged and perished in the flames which consumed the build- 
ing where he was confined. Public events made Mr. Chaun- 
cey less conspicuous than his predecessor. But he was more 
accomplished and abler as a man of books, and continued to 
be revered and loved to his death, which took place in 1745, 
in his seventy-fifth year. 

The third minister was Rev. Chester Williams of Pomfret, 
Ct., a graduate of Yale in ] 735, and tutor there two years. 
In his answer to the call he thinks the salary hardly sufficient 
to support a minister " free from the entanglements of life," 
but accepts, " hoping," he says, " I covet you more than 
yours." His ordination in 1741 was an occasion of great re- 
joicing. It is honorable, both to him and to his parish, that 
they carefully supplied his wants, paying him more, commonly, 
than his annual salary, without the expedient of " donation 
parties." That Mr. Williams was not wanting in energy ap- 
pears from what is known of his course generally, and from 
his being willing to act and vote against Jonathan Edwards 
on the question of the qualifications for church communion. 
Edwards limited the participation in the Lord's supper to con- 
verted persons, but Mr. Williams, sustained by his church, re- 
garded the ordinance as a converting one. The great body 
of evangelical Christians in New England have held to the 
view of Edwards, and the Hadley church returned to it. Mr. 
Williams married a daughter of Hon. Eleazer Porter, received 



57 

through her a handsome property, kept an extensive wardrobe, 
rode the best horse in Hampshire county, disrelished scandal- 
mongers, and is reported to have said to an intermeddler who 
came to him with seme piece of parish gossip : " Sir, this 
room has two doors, — you can take which you please." 

Mr. Williams was followed in 1755 by Rev. Samuel Hop- 
kins, a nephew of Jonathan Edwards, and a graduate of Yale, 
who was ordained after a Fast and tw'o sermons in February, 
his father, from West Springfield, preaching. He married the 
widow of his predecessor. In 1766, his house was burned, 
but in eleven days his prompt and energetic people had framed 
a new one, in which he was soon re-established ; the same 
now standing north of the Russell church, and ninety-three 
years old. Through a long and happy ministry, lasting till 
1809, within two years of the end of his life, this earnest and 
godly preacher maintained the character of a hospitable, 
cheerful, conciliatory, exemplary shepherd of the flock. Grav- 
ity and humor were so admirably blended in him as to make 
him a very animating companion to the young, without abat- 
ing anything from his ministerial dignity. If he was some- 
what deliberate and monotonous in the pulpit, there are anec- 
dotes to show that he was witty enough out of it. He fulfilled 
his high vocation, according to the pastoral Epistles of St. 
Paul, magnifying his office. His body was committed to its 
rest, beside those of the other venerated fathers, in the holy 
ground of our graveyard. I will not repeat the aflTectionate 
and hearty epitaphs which the mourning people carved upon 
these stones. You have read them again and again, or will 
read them before to-day's sun goes down. Not a stain rests 
on the memory of those four faithful lives. Let us thank the 
Chief Shepherd for that ! And when the great multitude they 
turned to righteousness shall appear with them, how many of 
our ancestry and kindred will come to crown them, in robes of 
light, with palms in their hands ! 

In the first of those epitaphs you find it declared that the 
pastor " governed the flock," but he and the three others I 
have mentioned governed it in the benignant spirit of their 
Master, with gentleness and modesty, with simplicity and truth. 



58 

blending courtesy with integrity, and letting love govern them- 
selves. They did not lord it over God's heritage. They had 
that spiritual discernment, given to the true and pure in heart, 
which knows how to recognize the spirit of piety, even under 
a deviation from its received forms ; and they had that heav- 
enly charity which sees that they who are not against the Mas- 
ter are on his side, while they that have not the spirit of Christ 
are none of his. There was no Diotrephes among them, lov- 
ing to have the pre-eminence. There was no vulgar, officious, 
blatant assumption of authority, no wilful dictation, no false- 
accusing intolerance, nor eager suspicion betraying a con- 
sciousness of inward wrong, no upstart imitation, on a petty 
scale, of Papal airs, requiring their people to pity, pardon and 
forget. Their record is clear, and it is on high. 

In the same burying ground are to be seen memorials over 
the mouldering remains of four, besides Russell, of those stout- 
hearted worthies who came in the original migration from Con- 
necticut, to wrestle with the wilderness and turn it into a gar- 
den for our sake, making it the dear old Hadley, the beautiful 
old Hadley, the venerable old Hadley, that we know, and love, 
and admire, and venerate, and mean to love and venerate more 
and more, as long as God lets us have hearts, reasons, memo- 
ries, souls. Headstones are set there for Captain Aaron Cook, 
Chileab Smith, John Ingram and John Webster. Mr. Web- 
ster was the first adult buried. It is a touching incident, and 
comes very close home to many of us, who have seen life open 
in forms made of our flesh and blood only to close again be- 
fore this world's air had colored its consciousness, that the very 
first body laid in our field of burial was that of a little infant 
without a name, born to Philip Smith, dying away from the 
hardship and the peril, away from the race and the battle, be- 
fore they came ! How that solemn cemetery humbles and 
brings together all ages and conditions ! 

" He lived, he died : behold the sum, 

The abstract of the historian's page ! 

Ahke in God's all-seeing eye, 

The infant's day — the patriarch's age."* 

*I cannot help connecting with this passage, as the sheets pass through the 
press, a reference to the solemn and beautiful lyrical tribute to the " Name- 



59 

Friends, I think another generation can hardly move on to 
take the appointed place in that burial-field, without obeying 
more carefully than has yet been done the refined and elevated 
sentiments which bid us adorn chastely the places of the dead ; 
bid us cover them with the bloom and the beauty of foliage 
and flowers ; bid us win and soothe the mourners there with 
tender colors, fair outlines, and a graceful order, — all in the 
name of him who brought life and immortality to light, and 
whose dear form slept in the garden of Joseph. Christ never 
despised reverential tributes to the human body. He gra- 
ciously accepted the costly anointing of Mary, "done against 
the day of his burial." In the elder times, it was a custom to 
lead out the youths of royal families to gaze on the monuments 
of their ancestors, and be inspired there to emulate their hero- 
ism. And here are ancestral memorials, rekindling in us and 
our children the holy courage of those who have won incor- 
ruptible crowns. Scatter along those ridges the seeds of fra- 
grant blossoms that shall breathe their perfume of benediction 
over the green sods. Twine there the delicate graces of the 
sweet-briar, the woodbine, the ivy, the clematis, and the rose. 
Multiply, by every avenue and pathway, the voiceless preach- 
ers of hope, — 

" Floral apostles, that with dewy splendor 
Weep without woe, and blush without a crime." 

LESS Ones," presented at a later hour of the Day of Celebration, from Dr. 
Holland. Years ago, Mrs. Hemans, whose " Pilgrim Ode " eloquently utters 
her generous symj^athy with these New England heroes, wrote, — 

" The kings of old have shrine and tomb 
In many a minster's haughty gloom ; 
And green, along the ocean's side, 
The mounds arise where heroes died ; 
But show me, on thy flowery breast, 
Earth, where thy nameless martyrs rest ! 

"What though no stone the record bears 
Of their deep thoughts and lonely prayers, 
May not our inmost hearts be stilled, 
With knowledge of their presence filled, 
And by their lives be taught to prize 
The meekness of self-sacrifice ?" 

In even more spirited verses, our native Poet makes these nameless sleep- 
ers arise and speak : — 

" Blood of ours is on the meadow ; 

Dust of ours is in the soil ; 
But no tablet casts a shadow 
Where we slumber from our toil." 



60 

Once it was an observance for every passer-by to perpetuate 
and enlarge the mound that marked a grave by casting one 
more stone upon tlie sepulchral pile. And here, where atfec- 
tion and veneration alike plead with us, ought we not to unite 
in bringing each a shade-tree, a honey-suckle, a forget-me-not, 
or a lily ? Cleanse away the weeds. Set up the leaning or 
fallen tablets. Restore the fading inscriptions. Make smooth 
the rough and sunken spots. Plant the living shafts and arches 
of the elm, the willow, the pine, the larch, to attract the birds 
and their melodies. Make the whole what the Moravians love 
to call their cemeteries, a " Field of Peace."* Into those 
" acres of God " have been borne out from almost all these 
houses — from how many of these living arms ! one and another 
very precious contribution to the congregated multitude of the 
departed — given up with tears, yet, if faith had her triumph, 
given up willingly because it was the Almighty Love that called 
them. 

It is right that our long review of the generations of the 
living should halt here where every generation and every pro- 
cession halts at last. Through the gateway of mortality every 
review must pass. There every history must be sifted. A 
hundred years hence, how many, coming after us, will have 
entered ! To those who shall gather to celebrate the third 
centennial, what strange and quaint antiquities the surviving 
specimens of our customs and fashions and dwellings and forms 
of speech will be ! But this we know ; and let this be our 
consolation : — Humanity, Duty, Character, Goodness, Truth 
Freedom, Faith, Hope, Charity, will all be unchanged — keep- 
ing their loveliness and majesty forever. " Glorious is the fruit 

* It ■will be taken in oood part, I hope, if I sujigest farther that any effec- 
tual improvements in tliis direction must depend very much on some social 
action of the people of the town. Measures for the decoration of private lots 
are apt to wear a look of singularity or ostentation, in a village grave-yard, 
if the adjacent spaces are left bare. The Providence of our histoiy has com- 
mitted to us a very unusual and a very sacred treasury in this dust of the 
great and good. The better instincts of humanity, the better tendencies of 
the age, and the genial teachings of our religion, all charge us to ask our- 
selves how we are guarding that trust. The reasons for action would bo 
equally strong if we only inquired how we might provide a resort of most be- 
nign and pm-ifying influence for the leisure hours of those that shall come 
after us. 



61 

of good labors, and the root of wisdom shall never fall away." 
Christ, our Redeemer, shall abide, " the same yesterday, lo-day 
and forever." The everlasting Word shall live. He who is 
without beginning of days, or end of years, — w^ho said " Let 
there be light " over creation, and there was light, who made 
the first beams of civilization to play along this valley, and 
who is to make the kingdoms of the earth the kingdoms of our 
Lord, shall not leave his people nor forsake them. 

" In pleasant lands have fallen the lines 

That bound our goodly heritage, 
And safe beneath our sheltering vines 

Our youth is blest, and soothed our age. 

" What thanks, O God, to thee are due 
That thou didst plant our fathers here ; 

And ■watch and guard them us they grew, 
A vineyard to the Planter dear ! 

" The toils they bore our ease have wrought ; 

They sowed in tears ; — in joy we reap ; 
The birth-right they so dearly bought 

We'll guard, till we with them shall sleep !" 



62 



The following hj-mn, selected and slightly changed, was then sung 
by the choir and audience : — 

God of our fathers ! hear the song 

Their grateful sons united raise, 
While round their hallowed graves we throng, 

To think and speak of other days, — 

Those days of toil and peril, when, 

In faith and love that conquered fear. 
They bought the fields of savage men, 

And reared their homes and altars here. 

To thee their daily vows were paid ; 

To thee their hearts and lives were given ; 
And, by thy guidance and thine aid, 

They trod their pilgrim path to heaven. 

Rich is the heritage we claim, 

Whom thou hast made their favored heirs. 

Their cherished faith, their honest fame, 

Their love, their counsels, and their prayers. 

They left us fi-eedom, honor, truth ; 

Oh, may these rich bequests descend 
From sire to son, from age to youth. 

And bless our land till time shall end. 

So, as successive centuries roll. 

When we shall long have passed away, 
Here may our sons, with heart and soul. 

Still hail Old Hadley's natal day. 



63 



POEM. 



BY EDWARD C. PORTER, A. B. 



As pilgrims, when they reach the shrine their weary feet have sought, — 
As sailors, when the anchor drops within the well known port, — 
As tired children, when they hear their mother's gentle call, 
To come around the glowing hearth at quiet Even-fall ; 

So we have gladly laid aside the sandals that had grown 
Too dusty in the busy world, through which we journeyed on, 
And furled the weather-beaten sails that long have floated free, 
To catch the ever shifting wind upon Life's restless sea ; 

And hastened at our mother's call upon this festal day, 
To smooth the brow of weariness and drive all care away. 
To circle round the ancient fire and sing the songs of old. 
And listen once again to hear the tales our grand-sires told, 

"We come to tell the faithful ones — our brothers — who at home 
Have kept the Fathers' memories fresh while we have loved to roam. 
The story of our wandering life, the wonders we have seen, 
Since in our boyhood's days we played upon this noble green. 

For some of us have wandered long beneath far distant skies, 
And sought in strange and foreign lands to win the golden prize. 
That glittered through our boyish dreams, as drowsily we lay 
On the long grass beneath these elms in the hot summer day. 

And some have hurried up and down where Wall street's busy throng 
Among the vaults of untold gold sweeps restlessly along, 
From Avhere the ships are lifting their anchors for the sea. 
To where the spire of Trinity points heavenward solemnly. 

And some have crossed the barrier hills that toward the sunset stand. 
And carried bright New England homes to the broad Western land. 
And given their thriving villages the old familiar name. 
In grateful loyalty to spread their Birth-place's honored fame. 



64 

And some have gone, with loving hearts, upon those prairies wide 

To tell the simple story of a Savior crucified, 

And labored long and labored well till darkness fled away, 

And from the East across the West flushed the glad dawn of day. 

And some have stood in Learning's halls to guide the feet that climb 
With young and often straying steps the cloud-capped hights of Time, 
And with an earnest, loving faith in youth's quick, generous blood. 
Have led them upward joyfully throiigh manliness to God. 

And some have crossed the billowy seas to that fair Mother-land, 
Where our stout Saxon fathers fought long ere the pilgrim band 
Came westward in the Mayflower, with iron hearts and bold. 
And called this home Neio England for the love they bore the Old. 

And some have stood with half drawn breath within the walls of Rome, 
And heard the Miserere thrilled beneath St. Peter's dome, 
And climbed far up the solemn Alps o'er the eternal snows. 
And felt their inmost hearts grow still amid the grand repose. 

And from these quiet village homes some have gone forth to stand 
As messengers of peace on earth in the dark heathen land ; 
And though they rest in far off" graves, yet who shall dare to say 
Their spirits do not meet with ours upon this festal day ? 

And some there are — God bless them all — who watchfully have kept 
The fire alive on the old hearth, e'er since the Fathers slept. 
And peacefully from year to year have marked the seasons' round. 
From Winter with its fireside joys to Autumn harvest-crowned. 

God bless them — for they've guarded well our vacant places here. 
And watched with welcome for our steps through many a weary year ; 
God bless them for the kindly thoughts that in their bosoms burn, 
As on this happy day they hail the wanderer's return. 



Bright dreams of childhood's joyous hours, glad thoughts of early days, 
Come swiftly thronging round us now, as from our various ways 
We gather at the quiet home our fathers loved of yore, 
And light the fires of Auld Lang Syne within our hearts once more. 



65 

Oh, vainly in the honied words that I may try to use, 

Or in the smoothly flowing rhymes a poet's ear could choose. 

Or in the soft measures lightly moved as the sweet hreath of May, 

All vainly shall we seek in these the Poem of the day. 

But each man in his own deep soul can read with tearful eyes 

The record that is written there of youthful memories, 

And paint on Fancy's canvas the days that are no more, 

The well known forms and gentle smiles of loved ones gone before. 

And as we raise, all thankfully, our thoughts to that far Heaven, 
Where God is keeping safe for us those treasures early given, 
And guiding by their starry light our often wandering way, 
Each loving heart will be its own best Poet of the day. 

And all around this dear old home, on Mountain, Vale and Stream, 
In these tall elms, amid whose leaves the dews of morning gleam. 
And on the meadows where the birds are singing blithe and gay, 
God's hand has written for us all, the Poem of the day. 

Grandly rise the Mountains toward the Southern sky, 
With the bannered pine trees on their turrets high. 
Through the smiling Summer — through the Winter's gale, 
Like twin castles guarding all the peaceful vale. 

Ragged rise the Mountains where the river pours 
Its swift current darkly past the rocky shores. 
Like grim, silent warders in their iron mail, 
Guarding well the portal of the peaceful vale. 

Solemn stand the Mountains where the white mists rise 
From their rocky summits to the morning skies. 
Like twin Druid altars where the incense pale 
Bears aloft the worship of the peaceful vale. 

Sternly frown the Mountains when the thunders loud. 
Echoing round their bulwarks, roll from cloud to cloud. 
And the wrathful Storm-wind hurls the icy hail 
On the summer verdure of the peaceful vale. 

Softly smile the Mountains when the sun goes down. 
And his last light lingers like a golden crown, 
Round their pine-clad summits, while o'er hill and dale 
Stretch the Evening shadows through the peaceful vale. 

5 



66 



And thus the grand old Mountains stood. 

Through Summer's bloom and Winter's snow, 
And watched amid the solitude, 
O'er hill and valley, field and wood. 
Two hundred years ago. 

Jeweled lies the Valley when the dew is spread. 
On the glistening flowrets of the fertile mead, 
When the breath of Morning from the placid streams 
Rises white and holy in the Day King's beams. 

Fresh and green the Valley when the sun's slant ray 
Browns the strong-armed mower 'mid the scented hay, 
While the meadows murmur low with droning bees, 
And the light winds whisper through the lofty trees. 

Eroad and rich the Valley when the leafy June 
Shades the weary cattle from the scorching Noon, 
Where the brooklet tinkles in its mossy bowers. 
Glancing merry laughter to the nodding flowers. 

Lovely lies the Valley when the shadows drawn 
In the level sunbeams, stretch o'er field and lawn. 
And all Nature hushes in her wondering pride, 
As the regal purple robes the mountain side. 

Beautiful the Valley when the dying day 

Clad in wondrous glory grandly glides away, 

'Mid the flooded radiance o'er the West that's rolled, 

Gilding cloud and hill-top with the liquid gold. 

And thus the peaceful Valley lay. 

And watched the River's ceaseless flow, 
All blooming in the showers of May, 
Or decked with Autumn's garland gay. 
Two hundred years ago. 

Brightly flows the River where the sparkling gleam 
Of its myriad ripples silvers all the stream, 
Flowing in the sunlight ever restlessly, 
Toward its far-off union with the mighty Sea. 



67 

Darkly flows the River where the willows lave 
Their moss-tangled tresses in the rippling wave, 
Plowing in the shadow ever ceaselessly, 
Onward to its hridal with the grey old Sea. 

Swiftly flows the River where it plows its way 
'Neath the fallen elm trees crumbling in decay, 
Hurrying on forever till its rest shall be 
On the heaving bosom of the Bridegroom Sea. 

From the Northern mountains, — down the valleys broad,- 
Through the narrow gorges, — past the shining ford, 
Past the emerald islands, — ever steadily 
Flows the river proudly onward to the Sea. 

In the glare of Noon-day — in the moonbeams pale — 
With the mists of Morning for a bridal veil, 
Flows the faithful River on confidingly 
To the heaving bosom of the Bridegroom Sea. 

And thus the noble River flowed. 

And watched the Summer come and go, 
As on the mossy banks she strowed 
Her flowers and garlands through the wood, 
Two hundred years ago. 



Beyond the seas proud nations stand in the firm ranks of war, 
The echo of their mighty tread has reached us from afar. 
The Eagles of Napoleon float where Ccesar's legions lay, 
Well nigh two thousand years ago in Rome's illustrious day. 

And poor, down-trodden Italy is rising yet once more, 
And her Roman blood flows proudly, as in the days of yore : 
God help her as she takes the field for home and liberty, 
And grapples with the tyrant that her children may be free. 

But in our quiet valleys, we hear no war's alarms, 
We see no burning villages, no clash of burnished arms ; 
Only the Wind's long battle with the grand old forest trees. 
And the tall corn's mimic warfare with the fitful Summer breeze. 



68 

The Broom-corn stands on the meadow lands, 

Like an army still and solemn, 
When it holds its breath as the leaden death 
Pours fast from the foeman's column ; 

For the tall Broom-corn is a ■\varrior born, 

In the stern battalions growing, ' 
And his green leaves wave like a banner brave, 
AVhen the battle winds are blowing. 

The yellow Maize in September days 

Stands ripe on hill and meadow, 
While brightly gleam in the slant sunbeam 
The ears 'mid the green leaves' shadow ; 
But the tall Broom-corn is a warrior born, 

In the stern battalions growing, 
And his green leaves wave like a banner brave, 
When the battle winds are blowing. 

The golden grain on the sunny plain 
Stands calm in the early dawning. 
And it nods with pride on the broad hill-side, 
In the gentle breeze of morning ; 

But the tall Broom-corn is a warrior born, 

In the stern battalions growing, 
And his green leaves wave like a banner brave, 
When the battle winds are blowing. 

His blood-red crest in the morning mist, 
He waves o'er the close ranks proudly. 
Like a soldier's plume in the battle gloom. 
Where the cannon thunder loudly ; 

For the tall Broom-corn is a warrior born, 

In the stern battalions growing. 
And his green leaves wave like a banner brave, 
When the battle winds are blowing. 



A few short hours, a few glad words will close this happy day. 
And we must leave these well known scenes and go upon our way ; 
Put on the dusty sandals, — unfurl the sun-bleached sail, 
And seek once more upon life's sea to catch the favoring gale. 



69 

But yet before we spread our sails upon tlie restless waves. 
For one brief moment we will stand beside our Fathers' graves, 
And drop the unforbidden tear as we remember those 
Who started with us in tfie race, but early sought repose. 

In the old Burying Ground over the hill, . 

Our Fathers are sleeping calmly and still, 

The moss covered tombstones guarding their rest, 

The soft earth pressed gently on each still breast ; 

Loud have the winter storms round their graves swept, 

Long years have silently over them crept. 

Yet all unheedingly they have slept still. 

In the old Burying Ground over the hill. 

Manful and earnest men. Godly and tried. 
Nobly they lived on earth, fearlessly died ; 
And, though the carved *names are wasting away, — 
Though the old tombstones sink in decay, — 
Yet on a fadeless scroll God's care hath kept 
The names of our Fathers bright while they have slept. 

To the old Burying Ground, over the hill. 
Through the two centuries gathering still, 
Youth and gray headed man, mother and maid. 
Have been borne tearfully, silently laid 
To rest with the Fathers who slumber so still, 
In the old Burying Ground over the hill. 

There in the quiet earth, through the long years, 
Free from life's busy cares, safe from its fears, 
Peaceful and calm they lie, while gently wave 
Daisies and violets on each still grave ; 
And from the waiting Heaven starry eyes keep 
AVatch o'er their dreamless rest through the long sleep. 

Oh when our turn shall come, and the church bell 

Shall toll for us slowly the funeral knell ; 

When meekly the pale hands are crossed on the breast, 

God grant us a quiet place for our last rest ; 

Like that where our Fathers slumber so still, — 

Like the old Burying Ground over the hill. 



70 

Anthem by the Choir. 
Benediction. 



« »« » > 



After these exercises were closed, a procession was formed of those 
holding tickets to the dinner, which marched to the ample tent, lo- 
cated in front of the church in West street, in which plates had been 
set for sixteen hundred people, by John Johnson, Esq., of Boston. 

Although there had been much rain during the day, nearly all the 
seats at the table were occupied, and the interest Avhich had been 
manifested from the commencement of the day, seemed in no wise 
abated. After order was secured, a blessing was asked by the Chap- 
lain. 

The following Ode, by Wm. C. Bryant, Esq., designed to be sung 
at the opening of the table exercises, was necessarily omitted, it be- 
ing past three o'clock. 

Two hundred times has June renewed 

Her roses, since the day 
When here, amid the lonely wood, 

Our fathers met to pray. 

Beside this gentle stream, that strayed 

Through pathless woodlands then, 
The calm, heroic women prayed, 

And grave, undaunted men. 

Hymns on the ancient silence broke 

From hearts that faltered not, 
And undissembling lips that spoke 

The free and guileless thought. 

They prayed, and thanked the Mighty One 

Who made their hearts so strong, 
And led them towards the setting sun. 

Beyond the reach of wrong. 

For them He made that desert place 

A pleasant heritage, — 
The cradle of a free-born race 

From peaceful age to age. 



71 

The plant they set — a little vine — 

Hath stretched its boughs afar, 
To distant hills and streams that shine 

Beneath the evening star. 

Ours are their fields, — these fields that smile 

With summer's early flowers : 
Oh, let their fearless scorn of guile, 

And love of truth, be ours ! (By pennission.) 

Before the dinner was quite througli with, the president of the day, 
Hour. Erastus Hopkins, announced that as Gov. Banks must ne- 
cessarily retire at this hour, he would anticipate the order of proceed- 
ings and present the following sentiment : — 

The State of Massachusetts, the parent that created, fostered and protects 
our" towns; first on this continent, in the cause of sound religion, solid piety, 
civil liberty, untiring industry, and first in the hearts of her children. God 
save the Commonwealth ! 

Hex. N. P. Banks responded and was greeted by the vast as- 
sembly with three hearty cheers. He spoke nearly as follows: — 

I thank you for the hearty sentiment given in favor of the Com- 
monwealth. I am glad to be present to-day and participate in this 
occasion, and learn of the early history of the founding of this town. 
Hadley is distinguished by a noble avenue of trees, as I had occasion 
to notice upon a former visit, and this street, of ample width, lined 
with rows of beautiful trees, speaks a volume as to the character of 
the early settlers. Roads and highways are the pioneers of civiliza- 
tion, they give an idea of the character of the settlers. On arriving 
in your beautiful town on a former occasion, I remember, I instinct- 
ively stopped, alighted from the carriage and walked beneath the 
overhanging boughs. In nothing is the march of that element in 
human affairs shown more than in the highways its constructs. And 
in your case there is ample evidence that there was no lack of that 
element in the character of your ancestors. Massachusetts owes more 
to the citizens of the towns for her prosperity than to any other cause. 
He felt indebted for an opportunity to be present, and closed with 
the following sentiment : 

The Town of Hadley. — May the great faith and unexamjiled strength of 
its founders, as certainly stimulate the people to perpetuate its prosperity and 
happiness, as they will furnish a wise and pati'iotic example to other towns of 
this ancient commonwealth. 



72 

The afternoon being now well advanced, tlie Governor and Coun- 
cil were obliged to leave in order to reach the train in season for their 
return homeward. The regular exercises were then continued. 

Introductory remarks of the President of the Day — Erastus Hop- 
kins, Esq., of Northampton. 

Through the partiality of the people of Hadley, I have been hon- 
ored with the duty of representing them on this occasion, so full of 
historic interest. In their name and behalf I cordially welcome this 
vast assembly of her guests who, at her bidding, have assembled 
around this festive board. Filled with fraternal feelings to each other, 
we are here assembled to review the history and to honor the memory 
of our fathers. And the citizens of Hadley feel proud, this day, in 
beholding this response of your presence to their invitation. You 
alike honor the living and the dead. I rejoice in Hadley as my birth 
place. And this joy, with its accompanying gratitude, is only in- 
creased as years roll on, and knowledge of the world is enlarged. 
Travel and observation in other parts of our own, and in foreign 
lands, are required to appreciate fully, or even approximately, the 
blessing of such a birth place. No where on the face of the wide 
earth can communities be found, composed almost exclusively of mere 
laborious tillers of the soil, which, in point of esthetic beauty, wide 
spread intelligence, and independent thrift can compare with the 
communities inhabiting this town of Hadley and its sister towns of 
Massachusetts, on the banks of the noble Connecticut. This is my 
earnest, my deep felt conviction and belief, and should be the occa- 
sion of devout gratitude while it legitimately awakens a profound 
sense of responsibility. 

Whatever else may occur to me to be said, I must confine myself 
to the official duty of introducing others to address you. But we 
are not to forget, while we indulge in our varied feelings of joy, and 
pride, and gratitude, that we are enjoying the labors of those who 
were, but are not, that we are here to cherish their virtues and to 
emulate their example. 

I introduce the commemorative exercises of this occasion by the 
following sentiment which I request you to receive standing, and in 
silence : 

The sacred memory of our Fathers. 

This was received in silence, the assembled multitude all rising, 
and the band following with a dirge. Mr. Hopkins then rose and said 
that he was specially pleased with the delicate, just and touching al- 



73 

lusion made by the Orator of the clay to the humble and unrecorded 
dead. The same sentiment had been most beautifully embodied in a 
communication which could be presented, at no time, so appropriate- 
ly as at the present moment. He then read the following letter from 
Dr. Holland : 

Springfield, June 7, '59. 
Erastus Hopkins, Esq. — Dear Sir: — You must know that the pulsation of 
the sheet of water at Hadley Falls shakes our doors and windows in the night. 
The eifect of this pulsation is very peculiar upon some minds, and you will 
find below a record of its effect upon mine : 

Heart of Hadley, slowly beating 

Under midnight's azure breast, 
Silence, thy strong pulse repeating. 

Wakes me, shakes me from my rest. 

Hark ! a beggar at the basement ! 

Listen ! friends are at the door ! 
There's a lover at the casement ! 

There are feet upon the floor ! 

But they knock with muffled hammers. 

They step softly like the rain, 
Jmd repeal their gentle clamors 

Till I sleep and dream again. 

Still the knocking at the basement ! 

Still the rapping at the door ! 
Tireless lover at the casement — 

Ceaseless feet upon the floor. 

Bolts are loosed by spectral fingers ; 

Windows open through the gloom ; 
And the lilacs and seringas 

Breathe their perfume* through the room. 

'Mid the odorous pulsations 

Of the air around my bed. 
Throng the ghostly generations 

Of the long forgotten dead ! 

"Rise and wz-ite !" with voice united, 

They command, and I obey ; 
And the message they indited 

I transmit to you to-day. 

" Children of the old plantation. 
Heirs of all we won and held, 



74 

Give us grateful celebration — 
Us, the nameless ones of eld. 

We were never squires and teachers, 
We were never wise and great ; 

But we listened to our preachers, 

Worshipped God, and loved the State. 

Blood of ours is on the meadow, 

Dust of ours is in the soil ; 
But no tablet casts a shadow 

Where we slumber from our toil. 

Unremembered, unrecorded. 

We are sleeping side by side; 
And to names is now awarded. 

That for which the nameless died. 

We were men of humble station ; 

We were women pure and true ; 
And we served our generation, 

Wrought and fought, and lived for you. 

We were maidens ! we were lovers ! 

We were husbands ! we were wives ! 
But oblivion's mantle covers ' 

All the sweetness of our lives. 

Praise the men who ruled and led us ; 

Carrj' garlands to their graves ; 
But remember that your meadows 

AVere not planted by their slaves. 

We were freemen ; we were neighbors ; 

Each the minister of all ; 
And ye enter on our labors 

As on theirs whose names ye call. 

Children of the old plantation ! 

Heirs of all we won and held ! 
Greet us in your celebration — 

Us, the nameless ones of eld." 
This the message ; and I send it, 

Faithful to their sweet behest ; 
And my toast shall e'en attend it 

To be read among the rest. 

" Fill to all the brave and blameless, 

Who, forgotten, passed away ! 
Drink the memory of the nameless, 

Only named in Heaven to-day." 



75 

After the reading of the above, the President said that having act- 
ed in behalf of the people of Hadley, he would now assume the un- 
delegated office of representing the guests and presenting a senti- 
ment which the modesty of the committee of arrangements prohibit- 
ed from the programme of regular toasts, to wit : — 

The Hadley of the present daij ; beautiful in appearance; rich in associa- 
tions ; abundant in hospitality ; worthy and honored heir of the homestead. 
Assembled at her bidding, around this ancestral hearth,, we proclaim her. 
Blessed. 

Giles C. Kexlogg, Esq. responded. 

The Town of Hatfield ; our first born and fairest daughter ; the delight and 
honor of her mother — the heir and welcome rival of her thrift and beauty. 

Rev. John M. Greene of Hatfield, replied. He said, though 
Hatfield had the honor of being the oldest child of Hadley, yet in 
truth she was born the same year with her mother. The first settlers 
from Hartford, Wethcrsfield and Windsor were fifty-three in num- 
ber — forty-seven stopped in Hadley and six went over the river and 
settled in what is now Hatfield. It is not to be supposed that the 
most timid and irresolute would thus go away by themselves, and 
therefore we have proof that the first settlers of Hatfield were equal- 
ly as enterprising and courageous as those who remained on this side 
of the river. 

Hatfield grew rapidly ; the land on Hadley street was divided in- 
to eight-acre lots, and when these had been taken they thought the 
whole of Hadley had been settled, and so pushed on to Hatfield, and. 
in nine or ten years the population increased to about one hundred. 
They entered into a mutual agreement on the two sides of the river, 
by which Hatfield, having the grist-mill, should furnish the meal, and 
Hadley, having the meeting-house, should furnish the preaching. 
Soon Hatfield complained of the hardships attending her part of the 
bargain, but we have no record that Hadley ever complained of hers, 
and hence he concluded that they had better meal than preaching. 

He alluded to witchcraft, and said there never was a case in Hat- 
field.* The discernment and good sense of the people were a suffi- 
cient barrier against it. In illustration he said that they have a story 
of this sort : — a man in Northampton had a pique against his neigh- 
bor and to get revenge came to Hatfield and told Mr. Partridge who 
held courts in Northampton, that his neighbor was a witch. Mr. P . 
listened to his whole story, and then replied, " I shall hold a court in 

♦Holland's " History of Western Mass., vol. II, page 145. 



76 

Northampton next Tuesday, bring on your case. Of course I shall 
convict the man. The sentence will be thirty-eight lashes, but one 
half of them will go to the complainant and those will be put on 
immediately." This is all that Hatfield had to do with witchery. 

In conclusion lie spoke of the distinguished men of Hatfield, 
Rev. William Williams, of whom President Chauncey, comparing 
him with Dr Stoddard, his contemporary in Northampton, said, " I 
believe him to have been the greater man ;" of Dr. Lyman and 
others. 

The Town of South Iladley ; true to the memory of her mother ; with a 
Lvoii heart, she is peacefully solving the vexed problem of Woman's power 
and Woman's Rights. Her daughters will take care of themselves. 

Dr. Kittridge of South Hadley, replied. 

Mr. President : — I had expected, till this moment, to have re- 
sponded only for Mount Holyoke Seminary, but I thank you in the 
name of the Seminary and of South Hadley, for the sentiment which 
is designed for both. 

Sir, it is an honorable testimony you have given South Hadley — 
*' that she is true to the character of her mother." Of this she may 
v/ell be proud ; for that mother was of puritan descent, and her 
character of puritan stamp; — benevolent, firm and independent, hav- 
Jng its foundation in the principles of God's word. 

You say, "she has a Lyon heart." Sir, she has a heart that beats 
firm and strong — which sends forth in every direction, to the remotest 
extremities, — life, health and vigor, for every good work. '' South 
Hadley is true to the character of her mother." 

But the sentiment is especially true in its application to Mount 
Holyoke Seminary. Sir, it is not in my power, nor will I attempt to 
■describe the mighty intellect, and the great heart of that sainted Mary 
Lyon, who, with firm reliance upon God, and with a heart overflow- 
jng with benevolence to all his creatures, laid m prayer, in tears, and 
in toil, the foundation of that institution. 

Mary Lyon has gone to her reward in heaven, but the heart of Mary 
Lyon is yet there. Her spirit and principles have never ceased to 
control her successors. In their system and instruction, their aim 
has uniformly been, to educate the intellect, the heart, the wliole wo- 
man ; to develope all her faculties, and prepare her for the realities 
of life — for her highest usefulness and happiness. 

Year by year, for more than twenty years, has that institution been 
sending forth her daughters on errands of mercy. They have gone 



77 

into all parts of the world, carrying with them, and imparting to oth- 
ers, the habits and principles in which they have been educated. 
The influence they have exerted for the cause of education, science, 
morality and religion, can never be estimated. 

How well they have succeeded in solving the vexed problem of 
Woman's Power, and Woman's Rights, — let the light and joy, the 
peace, purity and love, diffused by them in families and schools, in 
the chambers of sickness, in the abodes of poverty, wretchedness and 
ignorance ; yea, in all the circles in which they have moved and have 
made happy — let these testify. And may the time never come when 
the spirit of Mary Lyon shall cease to characterize that institution, 
which has been thus consecrated to sound learning and religion, nor 
when her daughters shall cease to go forth and bless the world. 

" Then Abraham fell upon his face and laughed, and said in his heart, shall 
a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old — and shall Sarah that is 
ninety years old bear ?" 

The Town of Amherst, incorporated 1759 ; the child of our old age, deem- 
ed of doubtful intellect, and therefore sent to College ; we rejoice in its emi- 
nent learning, and feel a maternfil pride in its noble contributions to litera- 
ture, science and religion. 

Hon. Edavard Dickinson of Amherst, responded as follows : — 

Mr. President : — I thank you, in behalf of the people of Amherst, 
for the kind notice you have taken of us in the sentiment just an- 
nounced. The present occasion, which is bi-centennial to you, is uni- 
centcnnial to us. It is one hundred years sinoe our separation from 
you. We rejoice to join you in celebrating this jubilee, on the bound- 
ary line between the centuries. And first of all, we should render 
devout thanks to Almighty God, for our ancestry : that the kingdoms 
of the Old World were sifted to procure the seed to plant this con- 
tinent ; that the purest of that seed was sown in this beautiful val- 
ley ; that we are of its product ; that the blood of the Puritans 
flows in our veins. " We are bone Of your bone, and flesh of your 
flesh," and while we are not now embraced in the same municipal 
government, yet our interests are largely identical, and our relations 
closely intermingled. We separated from you, from no want of do- 
mestic harmony, but because we wanted more room. 

We left you in possession of the gardens, and meadows, and by 
the side of our beautiful river ; and removed to the plains, and 
swamps, and hill-sides ; and for a long period, were sportively called 
" New Swampers," from a brook of that name, which skirted the 



78 

western limits of our territory. This is our first public return to the 
old homestead, and you will ask us how we have spent the first cen- 
tury of our childhood ; and we will answer briefly. We have clear- 
ed the forests, drained the swamps, and improved and fertilized and 
beautified our fields and hills. In 1735, we were permitted, by vote 
of Hadley, to become a " Precinct," then called the Third or East 
Precinct, and to enjoy certain quasi-municipal rights and privileges, 
on condition that we should build a meeting-house, and hire a minister. 
Accordingly in the warrant, issued in " His Majesty's name,'' calling 
the first meeting to organize the Precinct, by the choice of the proper 
oflUcers, was a clause to make provision for a meeting-house and a 
minister. Again, in 1754, when, by the incorporation of South 
Hadley into a town, we became elevated to the dignity of the Sec- 
ond Precinct, the w^arrant by which the inhabitants were summoned 
to organize the Second Precinct, called for action in reference to the 
support of a minister. And also in 1759, when our territory was 
set off into a district or tow^n, the warrant for organization required 
action for the sustaining of a jDcrmanent ministry, and providing for 
a house of worship. We complied, most cheerfully, with this con- 
dition of our emancipation, and since you allowed us to pass out of 
your tutilage, we have scrupulously obeyed your injunction to pro- 
vide for the meeting-house, and to support the minister. 

We next opened common schools. Then established an Academy, 
and as we increased in knowledge and enterprise, with the aid of a 
generous public, we founded a College, by which the material inter- 
ests of our region have been greatly improved : in the analysis of 
the soil, and the application of science to practical husbandry, and 
the useful arts. We have here educated men for teachers, and for 
usefulness and honor in the learned professions ; but more especially, 
and above all other objects, have we been preparing good men, 
(amongst the most distinguished of Avhom is the orator of the day,) 
to diffuse the knowledge of Christian truth at home and abroad, and 
to carry back to the nations from whom we sprang, the seed raised 
by us, therewith to replant and invigorate them, and thus fulfil the 
high and solemn and sublime mission of our country to restore to 
the old world, in all their purity, the principles of truth and a living 
faith, which have laid the foundations of our own national prosperity. 

It only remains to us to inspire those who succeed us, with the 
love of that truth, and that faith, and an earnest desire to transmit 
to their descendants, to the latest generation, those principles of vir- 



79 

tue and true religion, which in all past ages, have tended to promote 

material and intellectual and moral progress. Allow me to offer the 

following sentiment : — 

Old Hadley and her daughters ; may they ever maintain and cherish the 
principles which have made them what they now are. 

The Town of Granhy — our only grand-daughter; though she is modest and 
coy, hiding behind the mountain, she cannot escape observation. Our eyes 
rest with fondness on her beauty, and our ears delight in the sound of her 
Mills. 

Rev. Mr. Mills of Granby, responded. 

Amherst College; above the valleys of the old world, frowning castles stand 
as sentinels ; above ours, the smiUng halls of learning and piety. 

To this sentiment, President Stearns being called upon, briefly 
responded : He began by relating an anecdote suggested to him by 
the preceding sentiment, in which the old mother town seemed to 
reflect rather seriously upon the "intellect" of one of her offspring, the 
child of her hundredth year. An aged clergyman, somewhere near Bos- 
ton, who was somewhat of a bishop in his day, and not as greatly distin- 
guished for the grace of meekness as Moses used to be in the Primer, 
preached one Sabbath very eloquently upon the control of the temper. 
The next day his butcher called upon him with a formidable meat- 
bill, which the good old gentleman disputed with considerable pas- 
sion. It was now the butcher's turn to be angry. "Dr. ," said 

he, " ain't you a pretty fellow io preach all day yesterday, ' he that 
ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a. city,' — and now you 
are as mad as you can live, because you have got to pay an honest 
bill." The Doctor drew himself up with the proud dignity which be- 
longed to him, and which was made formidable by his full-bottomed 
wig, and said, "Sir, it is the experience of our infirmities which enables 
us properly to rebuke the sins of the people." Now, sir, if what was 
intimated of " the doubtful intellect," which was " therefore sent to 
college," is true, it cannot be denied that the experience of infirmities 
may have conduced to improvement, in the case of Amherst. 

Take an instance. In 1735, it was voted, by the precinct which 
afterwards became the town of Amherst, and this remark is no dis- 
paragement to my fellow citizens, for the town was a part of Hadley, 
then, " to heire a menester half a yeare and to build a meating-house, 
forty-five foots in length and thirty-five in bredth." Here is a slight in- 
firmity in the matter of orthography, to be sure. But on the very spot 



80 

where that m-e-a-t meeting-house was erected, afterwards called meet- 
ing-house hill, stands the college. Near that spot Noah Webster, 
who was the first president of the corporation of the college, and la- 
bored much to give it being, spent twelve years of his valuable life, 
on that immortal thesaurus of English words and definitions, Web- 
ster's Dictionary, which can never cease to be a monument of glory 
to its author, his country and the English tongue. 

He could not say that such marked progress, connected with old 
Meeting-house Hill, now called " College Hill," had been manifested 
in every other respect. It appears that one John Nash was hired by the 
town to "sound yekunk," or blow the conch-shell, for calling the peo- 
'ple together on the Sabbath, Though good bells have long since taken 
the place of the conch — yet they do say that sounds vcfy similar to 
conch shell's have sometimes been heard on week-days, from that very 
spot, down to a recent period, though he should not think of paying 
John Nash or any other John for making them, unless it was by allow- 
ing him a short vacation, perhaps, into the country. 

So much for " the child born unto him that is a hundred years old." 
It was time to pay his respects to the pleasant sentiment which had 
more directly summoned him to respond. 

He began now to learn one thing which was, at first, a puzzle to 
him. On receiving a polite note of invitation from " the Committee," 
he learned from the circular which accompanied it, that the persons 
who were especially expected to attend this anniversary were " all 
connected lineally or by affinity," with the original settlers or the 
earlier inhabitants of the town. Now though he had always respect- 
ed old Hadley, and more and more since he came into her neighbor- 
hood, — yet how to make out a title by " lineage or affinity," to a 
welcome on this occasion — "there was the rub." He remembered 
to have had some acquaintance with the Honorable President of the 
day, when they were both boys in Phillips Academy — but this seem- 
ed rather a weak peg to hang a claim upon. He thought, however, 
that on the score of lineage, he might be able through that same pres- 
ident, (Hon. Erastus Hopkins,) to make out a case. On looking 
into Holland's History of Western Massachusetts — that same Hoi- 
land to whose beautiful poem we had all just listened with so much 
admiration — he had discovered that Dr. Emmons of Franklin, mar- 
ried for his second wife, Miss Martha Williams, the step-daughter of 
Rev. Samuel Hopkins of Hadley — our president's noble grandfather, 
— and that the same Dr. Emmons married Miss Deliverance French, 
my grandfather's sister, for his first wife. 



81 

But lineage and affinity apart, he could not deny that he felt a deep 
and growing interest in old Hadley, and especially of late. That 
" tall broom-corn " which was " a warrior born," and which had been 
so poetically and charmingly described to-day, had attracted his at- 
tention. And as a proof of it and of his good feelings for Hadley, he 
would here state that the College had just appointed a new Professor 
— who might not inaptly be designated Professor of Brooms and 
Brushes. Now do not suppose, he said, that the design of this ar- 
rangement was to clean us up — for we trust you will suppose that we 
were clean enough before. What, then, was the object of this new 
foundation ? Surely enough, what could it be but to encourage the 
culture of that splendid crop which he had often seen, waving in the 
breeze, for acres together, like seas of fire, as he had ridden by — so 
that the Hadley farmers need not be constrained to sacrifice their lux- 
uriant and lovely meadows to the growth of a narcotic, which never 
did much good to a college, whether in the line of cleanliness or of 
morals. 

But you were pleased to speak, Mr. President, he continued, of 
"the smiling halls of learning and piety, which stand as sentinels 
above your valley." As long as they stand there, we trust the "frown- 
ing castles of the old world" which you brought into contrast with 
them, will never be needed for the defence of the people. Letters, 
science, religion — they are more powerful than military strategy, bay- 
onet and cannon. It is the glory of the old Hadley towns to have 
ushered into being two institutions of world-wide reputation and in- 
fluence. One of them is that beautiful flower, which has grown up 
so luxuriantly on the other side of the mountains — the queen of 
schools of the kind, of which it might be said, " many daughters have 
done virtuously, but thou excellent them all." The other is Amherst 
College. And what are the Halls of Amherst but clusters of a vine 
which is an offsett from ihe Old Hadley stoofc. He would not, how- 
ever, attribute too much to Hadley or to the Hadley Towns, not even 
to the child " of doubtful intellect," which was " therefore sent to 
college." Amherst College is the offspring of the religious and edu- 
cational sentiment of middle and western Massachusetts. It was 
taking no credit to himself to say that this alma mater of piety and 
learning had many noble sons, ministers, missionaries, statesmen, 
teachers and others scattered all over the world. It had large means 
and appliances for intellectual incitement, expansion and discipline. 
Its progress, for the time, as an educational institution, had been 
almost unparalleled. But it still has its wants ; especially it wants, 



82 

and is hoping to obtain, those means for physical training which will 
enable it to unite in its students the stalwart forms of those who till 
the soil, with the intellectual power of the truest scholars. 

In conclusion, he would say nothing boastfully of the College, but 
he would say to the old Hadley towns, and to all the towns surround- 
ing, and to whoever might be pleased to give them their confidence, 
send us your sons, the marble from your quarries, in the rough, and 
our sculptors, with all the great examples of the past before them, and 
noble ideals of excellence within them, shall hew and hammer and 
chisel, and form and shape and mould the not indocile material, work- 
ing on for four years, steadily and earnestly, day in and day out, till 
in the end, when the inspiration of the Almighty had given it under- 
standing, they shall start forth upon the world, the living statue, stand- 
ing up in the full proportions of its manhood, an Edwards or a Hunt- 
ington. 

Rev. Joltn Russell — tlie first minister of Hadley who, fearins God rather 
than man, braved all personal perils in his care of trembling fugitives from 
tyranny. 

The Hon. Judge Russell, being called upon by the President, 
responded substantially as follows : — 

Your President, who generally forgets nothing, has forgotten the 
ancient reputation of Hadley. Your good town is famous for its 
hospitality to judges ; but that hospitality was shown, not by calling 
them out, but by keeping them quiet. I cannot trace my descent 
from John Russell. If I had the ingenuity of President Stearns, I 
would go cousining as he did, for I should be proud if I could claim 
as my ancestor, that noble old Puritan who dared to shelter the men 
who came to his home with a King's blood on their hands, and the 
Avenger of Blood on<J;heir track. My fathers never saw Hadley 
meadows. If they had, they never would have settled down on the 
barren sands of Plymouth. You, Mr. President, had so much diffi- 
culty in finding any descendants of your old pastor, that I began to 
fear he was like that famous Irishman, who said it was hereditary in 
his family not to have any children. Some of those descendants 
have been found, and you are glad to welcome them here. But they 
cannot claim that honor alone. Wherever there is a man who loves 
liberty and hates tyranny, and will hide the outcast that flies from 
oppression, — there is a descendant of John Russell, — there is a child 
of the Puritan Fathers. That lineage I claim by this right. 



83 

You 'have alluded to my descent from Miles Standish, — a man fa- 
mous in his day as the sword of Plymouth Colony. But such is the 
power of poetic genius, that he is likely to be remembered chiefly as 
the man who was so foolish as to do his love-making by proxy. I has- 
ten to assure you all that this is not " hereditary in the family," nor 
practiced in the Old Colony. We never had any witchcraft there in 
old times ; but there is a witchcraft, in which we fully believe, and 
of which some of you must be the victims to-day. 

I should not have dared to intrude upon this Thanksgiving Din- 
ner of the great Hadley Family, if I had not been a young branch 
of that old Plymouth stock. But we love to boast of Plymouth 
Bock as the " primitive formation " of the continent, and if Profes- 
sor Hitchcock doesn't think the joke too old, he would perhaps re- 
mind me that each man who pushed his way a hundred miles into 
the wilderness, might claim to be ranked as a boulder. 

Your poet has referred most appropriately to the graves of your 
ancestors " over the hill," which you can visit with pride and admi- 
ration. Not so can we visit the graves of the Pilgrim Fathers, who 
died in that first sad winter after their landing. For, as you all 
know, the survivors leveled those graves and sowed them with grain, 
so that the Indians should not count the number of the dead. They 
sowed them with grain ; but the product of that mournful sowing 
was more precious far than golden grain or than California gold. 
The tree of civil and religious liberty springs from those graves. 
Even now its branches spread from sea to sea ; and its leaves are 
for the healing of the nations. They talk of raising a Pilgrim Mon- 
ument at Plymouth ; but your fathers and mine are not without a 
memorial. The fertile meadows, the thriving towns of this happy 
valley ; the wealth of our crowded cities ; the comfort of our peace- 
ful villages ; the science of our colleges ; the intelligence, liberty, 
morality and progress that make old Massachusetts first among 
Christian Commonwealths, — these are the enduring monument of the 
Puritans. Let these answer every charge that can be brought against 
them. We need not deny their faults ; we need not apologize for 
them. " Bigoted and fanatical " they are called. We can believe 
it. These are faults of human nature and of their age. But when 
we remember the toils of our fathers, and reap the fruits of those 
toils, we might tremble, if they could be allowed to live again freed 
from the imperfections, with which their memory is reproached. We 
may doubt whether any men but fanatics would have left their pleas- 



84 

ant homes for this howling wilderness ; we may well doubt whether, 
without bigotry, they would not have lost something of their stub- 
born virtue. AVhen we judge the Puritans by what they have done 
for us, we shall be ready to thank God that he made them just as he 
did make them, — with all their glorious virtues, with all their heroic 
faults. There have been men of more refined taste than those, who 
shed their blood at Turner's Falls, or Bloody Brook, or Hadley 
Meadows ; there have been men of more graceful speech than those 
who sunk beneath the frosts at Plymouth ; there have been men of 
more pleasing manners, of more enlarged views ; but tliey have no 
New England for their monument. 

It would be well if those who have learned to censure the errors 
of the Puritans, would imitate their virtues. Remember that to those 
virtues not yet quite forgotten, we owe the prosperity of New Eng- 
land. Her wealth comes not from her soil or her climate, but from 
the qualities of mind and heart transmitted from the Puritans. They 
came to found a Christian State ; their example, their honored mem- 
ories have saved and blessed the state. And if luxury and vice, cor- 
ruption, servility and unbelief should prevail through the land, we 
should almost expect to see the grand old regicide, coming not now 
from his hiding-place at the parsonage, but from his resting-place in 
the grave, to drive back these unhallowed invaders from the soil 
which they pollute. Let me give you as a closing sentiment : 

The Virtues of our Fathers — As your Mountains guard the peaceful mead- 
ows at their base, so do Puritan principles guard the happy homes of New 
England. May those principles be honored, as long as Holyoke lifts its sum- 
mit toward the clouds, as long as the Connecticut rolls its waters to the sea. 

The Orator of the Day ; may bis active life find solace and vigor, and may 
his age reap the fruits of serenity and peace, amid the placid retirements of 
his native Elm valley. 

Pkof. Huntington replied as follows : — 

Mr. President : — When one is called up by somebody's grandson, 
it is perfectly fair to make use of 'the grandfather as an assistance in 
getting down. And so, sir, when I remember how much you all had 
of me before dinner, and what you may be likely to say when you 
see m9 at it again, and what the natural effects of a dinner are, I re- 
sort to an anecdote, which I flatter myself you will pronounce a very 
pertinent one, as suggesting a good reason why I should be let off 
with a short speech. The good Dr. Hopkins had it among his other 
magnanimous traits, that he was willing to tell a joke at his own ex- 
pcnsco Ho used to say that on one of his Sunday exchanges at 



85 

Northampton, lie was invited to dine with " Squire Strong," after- 
wards Governor Strong, and that when Mrs. Strong offered the Doc- 
tor a plate of pudding, he declined it, with the remark that pudding 
was apt to make him dull in the pulpit ; whereupon Mr. Strong 
turned to him and said in a subdued voice, " Doctor, didn't you 
have pudding for breakfast?" 

Mr. President, the company here seem to like that story so well, I 
will tell them another. One day, as Doctor Hopkins said, he called 
on a young man in his parish who had been some time out of health, 
and, after improving the occasion by some serious and condoling re- 
flections, observed to him, " Well, my young friend, it is now a long 
time since you were able to come to meeting with us ; I think I must 
bring you one of my sermons and read it to you." " Ah," replied 
the reprobate, " I wish you would. Doctor, for I haven't had a wink 
of sleep since I was taken down!" 

Now, after sitting and standing out that two hours' discourse of 
the morning, — which, after all. Sir, considering all its accompani- 
ments and episodes you cannot fairly call a very dry performance, — 
you may likely enough have supposed I was laid safely away for this 
occasion ; very much as her neighbors fret about the vexatious witch, 
Moll ^V''ebster, when she seemed to expire, and doomed to be disap- 
pointed, too, as they were. The account runs that after her apparent 
release, as the funeral bearers, not very heavy at heart, but with all 
the solemn proprieties of the custom, were carrying her into the grave- 
yard, some mis-step brought the bier with a jar against the gate-post. 
At this, a sharp voice, with a very characteristic accent, was heard in- 
side the coffin, objecting to the whole proceeding. The resuscitated 
lady was taken out and walked home. Some time after, the same 
scene was repeated; when, as the procession reached the gate, a sober 
and prudent neighbor stepped rapidly up and said to the bearers, — 
"Take care, there ! Don't hit that gate-post this time !" 

The friendly sentiment which you have been pleased to connect 
with me just now. Sir, alludes to the "placid retirement" of Old 
Hadley. That is all very well indeed ; that is just what I, for one, 
love Elm Valley for ; — but I can't help wondering, whether, when 
you got up that toast, there wasn't just the least possible gleam of 
the grand-parental humor and mischief, in the Presidential eye — as 
much as to say, " Hadley is exceedingly lovely, and serene, and all 
that, but a little slow : the enterprise we keep over our side of the 
river." And there is something in it. You have been a little smarter 
than we have, ever since you got the Court House. But lest pride 
should wax too complacent on that point, I will venture to repeat a 
tradition which I picked up last winter from some one hereabouts—- 
I think it was Deacon Stockbridge. According to that, when the 
commissioners came up to determine which should be the shire town, 
they visited Hatfield, Hadley and Northampton, and after an impar- 
tial examination reported, in substance, that they considered the 
holding of courts and trials in any place as dangerous to its morals 
and manners, bringing in much idle company and loose gossip ; that. 



86 

they had found the Hatfield people verj^ virtuous, and the Hadley 
people very industrious ; but when they came to Northampton, the 
people appeared to be neither remarkably virtuous nor industrious ; 
and they would therefore recommend that the courts be held at North- 
ampton ! My private opinion is that this extract from our unwritten 
annals wants confirmation. 

It has been good for old Hadley, to-day, to hear her children give 
so handsome an account of themselves, and of their children. Par- 
ticularly pleased is she with her two educational grand-children, of 
opposite sexes, at Amherst and South Hadley, so admirably sustain- 
ing the culture not only of the Irain, but of the heart. It is firmly 
believed, you know, that the interposition of a strip of mountain wall 
between these two young cousins — whether that was prudently ar- 
ranged by the old lady, or whether the coy girl hid herself behind 
Holyoke and Bachelor's Brook, from maidenly reserve, — has not been 
utterly fatal to a confidential communication, and that, as sometimes 
happens in other cases of a suitable nearness of age and station, the 
mere trifling circumstance of a cousinship has not proved an abso- 
lutely insuperable barrier to the growth of more romantic relations. 

A brave voice from Hatfield, too, defends the character of the sen- 
sible, steady-going farmers who did not like too much navigation on 
Sundays, and were shy of witchcraft. As to the first of these mat- 
ters, the living representation of the Hatfield pulpit we have had to- 
day amply justifies the preference of the people there for choosing 
their own preaching ; as to the other, there is, I believe after all, 
an unfortunate suggestion in the books that our Hadley witchcraft 
was somehow started by a certain young woman in Hatfield. But 
that is no matter. What care we now whether there were more 
witches here or there ? especially delicate is the question, when we 
come to the witchcraft of young women. Why, Sir, only a quarter of 
a century ago, or thereabouts, I remember I used to think there were 
live witches of that sort all the way from " Major Smith's " to " Spruce 
Hill." 

President Stearns has given us some striking reasons, in specimens 
of the spelling of the Amherst Records, why distinguished literary 
advantages should have been conferred on Amherst, as they were. 
In the very order he refers to, for organizing a Parish in that east- 
ern precinct, if I remember rightly, the first member of the com- 
pound word " Meeting-house " was spelt M-e-a-t-i-n-g. Happy and 
significant blunder ! If it contained an unconscious prophecy, that 
prophecy has not to our day failed of its fulfilment. " Strong meat " 
still nourishes the families of the First Parish in Amherst, and it is 
dispensed in a liberal, unsuspicious, fraternal spirit. Let me conclude, 
Sir, with speaking an honored, illustrious and venerable name, — hon- 
ored in all this town and county, illustrious for many generations 
throughout the land, venerable for lofty services rendered to Learning, 
to the State, and to the Church, — the name of Dwight. 



87 

The foion of Northampton : it clasps hands with us across the dividing 
waters, thus forming the connecting link between the natural divisions of our 
county. Though the palpable connection may be interrupted for a season, 
there are less palpable ties that neither time nor force can sunder. 

The Rev. Gokbon Hall of Northampton, replied as follows : — 

I am called upon, it seems, to represent on this occasion the town 
of Northampton " clasping hands wdth Hadley across the dividing 
waters." I have sometimes represented the fellowship of Churches 
by giving the right hand to a minisferial brother. But to take the 
shape of a tow'n, and give a town's right hand to another town, and 
that across the Connecticut river, is quite a different affair. This 
however, I am pledged to do by the sentiment to which I speak. 
" Northampton clasps hands with Hadley across the dividing waters ;" 
— and I am to represent Northampton — all its good, respectable peo- 
ple — its farmers, merchants, lawyers, physicians, all trades and pro- 
fessions, and ladies too, I suppose, as w^ell as gentlemen. So, good 
friends of Hadley, please to understand that I gather the hands of 
all these my town's-people into one great hand, and reach it across 
the Connecticut, taking hold of the great hand of Hadley with a 
cordial greeting. 

I have been thinking whether I could claim any relationship to 
Hadley. Occasionally, you know, it is quite an object to make out 
relationship. When my Uncle or Cousin becomes wealthy or re- 
nowned I am quite happy to claim connection with him. To-day the 
town of Hadley seems to be in very high repute, riding in her tri- 
umphal chariot, with a goodly procession for her retinue. We are 
all here to glorify Hadley I suppose, or to be glorified on account of 
some connection with her. So that we all feel a little Hadleyish, 
without doubt. Now I am one of the unfortunate number who can- 
not succeed in tracing any of my ancestors to this honored place. I 
do not find that either of the " Three Brothers " to whom, of course, 
my pedigree reaches back, and who "came over in the Mayflower," 
ever settled in Hadley. But I do not wholly give up the case on this 
account. For, by affinity I am related to a man who, some years ago, 
married a Hadley lady. And furthermore, I am settled though not 
exactly in Hadley, yet next to it ; so I came, as you see, very near 
being a native of Hadley. On these grounds, not to detain you with 
farther particulars, I file my claim for a small dividend of the glory 
of this illustrious day. 

I have no doubt of the good feeling between the towais of Hadley 
and Northampton. I do not see the necessity of asserting it. But 
it seems to be the way sometimes to tell how much we love one an- 
other — to make a declaration. So we do protest, and would have it 
published to " all whom it may concern " that we are on the most 
friendly terms and clasp hands across the river with a right hearty 
good-will. 

In the sentiment by which I am guided allusion is made to the 
river as a line of division or separation. But we " clasp hands across 



88 

it." Between us the Connecticut is no unfriendly barrier. Indeed 
water is conceded to be one of the very best conductors ; and wlio 
doubts that the pulse beating on either side is felt upon the other ? 
Who, when referring to the Connecticut valley, thinks of the river 
as divorcing one part from the other r "Who does not rather think 
of the meadows collectively as one rich carpet or dress, and the river 
winding through it, as a thread of beauty ? And the bridge is like 
the clasp of a lady's girdle ; wl^ch giving way and disappearing, it 
reveals that above and below are only parts of one whole, the unity 
of which is more clearly disclosed. In fact, before the failure of this 
" palpable connection," we hardly knew how much we loved one an- 
other, and how intimate were our relations. Northampton found 
she could not do without Hadley. Hadley could not do without 
Northampton. So, at once, we set a boat plying as a shuttle be- 
tween us and weaving the bonds of connection still more closely. I 
do not believe our merchants were aware before how much they loved 
their Hadley customers ; or our lawyers, how much they loved their 
Hadley clients ; or our physicians, their Hadley patients. Now that 
the bridge has been carried away, and communication made more 
difficult, we ascertain how deep, vital, practical was the interest which 
survived the crash of material structures. 

And this brings me to the concluding feature of my sentiment 
which speaks of " ties less palpable and stronger, that neither time 
nor force can sunder." Now waiving all pleasantry and trifling, 
this language expresses a profound and precious truth. We m^e 
united by the ties of a common Puritan ancestry, and by historic as- 
sociations in common. In colonial times and in days of peril by the 
Red Man, our fathers were one in their privations and struggles. 
Our fathers were of one heart in the days of Goffe and Whalley, 
when the Rev. Mr. Russell of Hadley was so recreant to " the lower 
law," and so " confounded Religion and Politics " as to harbor the 
Regicides in the ministerial mansion. Our fathers stood together in 
the Revolutionary conflict. We are one in a common education, a 
common religious faith, a common heritage of principles, interests and 
sympathy, one in hope and aim for our country and the world. And 
we will continue one in opposition to vice, error and wrong, I think 
were it announced in any new settlement, that two immigrants had 
arrived, one brought up in Hadley the other in Northampton, the 
presumption would be that the two men were much the same in prin- 
ciples and spirit. The sons of Hadley and of Northampton, wherever 
scattered, shall be found on the same side of great vital questions, 
doing battle for truth, righteousness and freedom, for God and 
humanity. 

Yes, there are ties unseen but potent which bind us together. 
And if there be a soul here to-day who has aught other feeling than 
that of friendship, union and beneficent co-oj)eration, he stands re- 
buked by yonder generous meadows, which lie together so peacefully 
and lovingly. But by a voice higher and more impressive he stands 



89 

rebuked — -by that voice which bids us love our neighbors as ourselves ; 
and which bids all the friends of truth and righteousness be of one 
mind in resisting the leagued forces of evil. 

The Orator of the Day has compared the valley spread out between 
us to the " land of Beulah." I well remembei-, as I was riding, one 
Sabbath morning, across these meadows, and feasting myself with 
the prospect which lay stretching out Northward and Southward and 
all around me, how forcibly the thought pressed upon my mind, if God 
has made a world so lovely for a race of sinners, what will that 
"New Earth " be wherein shall dwell righteousness. We will think 
of this our beautiful valley as like the land of Beulah. And, God 
helping us, we will work together to make it like the fair fiel'ls of 
the Blest — like the Paradise above, in the midst of which is the River, 
and on either side the Tree of Life, whose fruit is perennial and 
whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. 

The early Clergy of Neio England : the faithful Pastors of willing Flocks ; 
in whose every " crook " there was virtue and strength. 

Prof. W. C. Fowler, late of Amherst, now of Connecticut, being 
called upon by the President, said : — 

Mr. President, the scenes witnessed here to day, and the 
word spoken, have carried my mind two hundred years into the past, 
so that I need to pause for it to come back, before I can say anything 
appropriate to the present moment. 

The clergy to a large extent derive their character from the people 
to whom they minister. Good people are very apt to have good cler- 
gymen. And who were the first settlers of Hadley ? They, at least 
a prominent portion of them, came from England first to Massachu- 
setts, then to Connecticut, and then to Hadley, with minds enlarged 
by experience in the mother country and in two colonies, and thus 
qualified to lay the foundation of a new settlement. And why did 
they emigrate to Hadley ? They came to Hadley under the same im- 
pulse which brought them first from England, then from Massachu- 
setts to Connecticut, namely, that strong sense of religious obligation 
which was the master passion of their lives. 

When the first colony went from Massachusetts to Rhode Island 
under the lead of the banished Roger Williams, it was said that they 
left Massachusetts because they were too bad to be kept in it. When 
the "goodly company" under the lead of Thomas Hooker, "the light 
of the western churches," went from Massachusetts to Connecticut, 
it was said that they left Massachusetts because they were too good 
to stay in it. Whether this antithesis was uttered seriously or jocose- 
ly, it might with equal propriety be said, that the first settlers of Had- 
ley returned to Massachusetts, because they were too good to stay in 
Connecticut. Thus England was first sifted, and then Massachusetts 
was sifted ; and then Connecticut was sifted for the good wheat to be 
sown in Hadley. And this good seed was sown upon good ground, 
and brought forth seed abundantly after its kind. Cuba tobacco, 



90 

when sown in the valley of the Connecticut, may degenerate, but not 
the people. And why not the people ? Because they placed them- 
selves from the first under the conservative power of the institutions 
of religion. The Rev. Mr, Russell, Governor Webster, Elder Good- 
win and others sought not political power, for themselves or a party, 
not nuggets of gold, but what they deemed a " faith's pure shrine." 
Their religious principles were inculcated from the pulpit and trans- 
mitted to others. 

Mr. President, the ministers of Hadley in the first century, or in 
the language of the resolution "the early clergy, were faithful pas- 
tors;" and one reason why Russell, and Chauncey, and Williams. 
and your ancestor, Hopkins of the first church, and Atherton, and 
my ancestor, Chauncey, and Williams, of the second church, and 
Parsons, of the third church, were " faithful pastors," was that they 
had each of them, in the language of the resolution, " willing flocks." 
The pastor and his flock felt that they were united together for lime and 
for eternity. The flock instead of diff"using their reward and love up- 
on a pope and cardinals, and bishops, and rectors and curates, con- 
centrated them upon the man of their own choice. And the pastor 
instead of considering his settlement in one parish as a stepping-stone 
to something higher, made up his mind from the first, to live and die 
with his people. And when in a mutually confiding spirit he spoke 
the truth in love, and "ruled with diligence," there was virtue and 
strength in his " crook." But if that crook in the hand of a bishop 
should become a crosier, it would lose its virtue and strength. 

The early inhabitants of Hadley sought for a desirable locality, and 
here they found it. They found it here on these alluvial formations 
which contained the elements of fertility stored up by the provident 
hand of nature for their use. They found it here in the presence of 
the crowned monarch of the mountains. They found it here on the 
banks of the noble river which lingers to clasp, in its genial embrace, 
those fair meadows before it passes on to the ocean. They found it 
here where they could thank God in their daily devotions that the 
" lines had fallen to them in pleasant places," 

But the early pastors and their flocks were pilgrims on the earth 
who were seeking a " better, even a heavenly country," I see them, 
Hke the elders who through faith obtained a good report, moving on 
in their pilgrimage in "long procession calm and thoughtful" towards 
the city of the great king — I see them like a great cloud of witnesses, 
looking down upon us here assembled, in a filial spirit to do them 
honor, and saying to us with parental yearnings, '' come up hither," 

In response to a call of the President, Judge James B. Colt said : 

Mr. President, — It was my good fortune to be among the invited 
guests of this occasion. I do not know but I would have come with- 
out it. I am sure those whom misfortune or forgetfulness prevented 
from being present here to-day, have lost much, both of interest and 
of instruction, in not being permitted to behold this glorious scene. 



91 

Many generations are here represented. It is not a Legislature 
planning laws for good government ; it is not a Congress, pregnant 
with great resolution to redress wrongs committed, and to build up a 
new nation, but it is a fair and brilliant collection of the descendants 
of those pioneers of labor and principle, who subdued the forest, es- 
tablished Government and Religion, to the end of promoting their 
interest and happiness, and that of their posterity. We, their posterity, 
raise our voices in commendation of their fidelity and heroism. We 
are to-day enjoying the fruits of their glorious labors. Two centuries 
have passed away since they first pitched their tents here ; and now, 
while I am speaking, in presence of this assemblage, six generations 
of spirits are hovering around us. Behold them — each seeking for its 
temporal relation, in myriads, as we see in some old life-breathing 
canvas, they wander about us. They do not speak but in influence, 
as spirits only can influence. They guide the heart to renewed de- 
votion, and make the head clear for renewed conflict. They are our 
monitors, our guiding stars, both for this and the life to come. Long 
may we live to respect the devotion and heroism of the departed, and 
be guided by their counsels. 

But I will not trespass upon the province of the able speakers who 
have so eloquently discharged the offices of the day. I am but "a look- 
er on here in Vienna." Though for many years a resident of a new 
home many hundred miles from here, I do feel a deep and an abiding- 
interest in my father's native town. As I love and revere his memory, 
so must 1 cherish the sacred spot where first his eye beheld the glo- 
rious sun. I must love the old house where he was born, the old 
meadows where, in boyhood, "he drove " his "team afield" — the 
old spot where the school house stood — the old church — and the old 
burying ground, sanctified and made holy by a thousand recollections 
of the descendants of those who lie buried there. We cannot forget 
John Webster, the magistrate and fifth Governor of Connecticut ; and 
the Rev. John Russell, of Wethersfield, who with his band of adven- 
turers seeking a spot where they could enjoy the rights of conscience, 
were the first to pitch their tents in this beautiful valley. We cannot 
forget good old deacon Goodwin, who, upon Mount Holyoke fell a 
sacrifice to the tomahawk — the wars of king Philip — when two towns- 
men were killed — the number of Lidians slain not known — nor the 
fact that the good old ladies of the time thought they were protected by 
the guardian Angel, who suddenly appeared in the streets of the town, 
among the soldiery " with strange manner and stranger garb." And 
who turned out to be in one sense a guardian Angel — for he so mar- 
shalled the little band of soldiers, as to make good their resistance to 
the savage foe who becoming intimidated, dispersed to the forest and 
were not heard of afterwards. 

This strange spirit, this guardian angel proved to be no other thati 
Major General Goffe, a soldier of Cromwell's army — the Regicide, 
one of the Judges of King Charles I, and who, fleeing from his pur- 
suers, had found a hospitable asylum in good old Parson Russell's 
house, where it is said he was concealed for some fifteen years, and 



92 

then went away, no one knew where. We cannot forget all this, nor 
the spot where these scenes were enacted, nor would we, if we could. 

Mr. President : — Now mark the contrast. Our ancestors not only 
planted here, but they scattered their seed upon the waters of civil- 
ized life. Scarcely a century and a quarter passes, with the fifth gen- 
eration after the first settlement here, in the then wild wilderness, 
when the world beholds a new nation of three millions of free and 
independent people, born into life. It is a curious fact that while the 
question of recognizing the Independence of the United Colonies, was 
before Lord North, or the Marquis of Rockingham's administration, 
a sage member of the English Parliament, thoucrht that the question of 
recognition a matter of no great importance. There were only about 
three millions of people in the whole country, — which was very un- 
healthy — with a very forbidding coast, and a very high mountain back, 
called the Alleghanies; and that from the nature of the poor lands, 
high mountain, inhospitable coast, sickly climate, the population, 
thought the English Parliamentarian, would never increase in num- 
ber to be over three or three and a half millions; not much of a 
people to make a nation out of, and never one to become a rival or in 
any way formidable to the mother country. 

Mr. President: go with me, sir, and stand upon some high peak of 
the Alleghany ; let your mind pass over the coming century, and your 
eye behold the then condition of the Republic of the United States. 
As you face the South, your eye cannot see the Southern line still 
moving towards the equator or beyond it. Upon your left, a thousand 
cities teem with all the arts and sciences of civilization. And as you 
turn to your right, you behold almost as many States, filled with an 
enterprising, heroic population. The commerce of the Indies pours 
n upon us from the golden gates of the setting sun ; the iron horse 
is in mastery, and lights up the night through his fiery nostrils. I speak 
not of the printing press, the steam plow, the reaper or the telegraph, 
nor the uprising of cities in that great trough of the Continent. The 
largest cities of antiquity have been inland cities. The inland com- 
merce of a country is ten times as great as the external commerce, 
and must necessarily make cities in proportion. Behold, I say, this 
coming period, and as you stand upon that high peak, and as you look 
upon that glorious scene, raise your voice in praise of such an ances- 
try as have gone before us, and whom we are proud to venerate, and 
thank God, you are an American citizen. 

Mr. President, with your permission, sir, I will give as a toast : 

The two M's, Massachusetts and Missouri ; their " Union, now and forever, 
one and inseparable." 

The Connecticut Valley ; always considered staid and immovable, it now 
appears that she has all the while been making tracks for Amherst College. 

Dr. Hitchcock of Amherst, -was called upon to respond to this 
toast, but he having left the tent, and no one being found to do honor 



93 

to the sentiment, the President read the following letter from Judge 
S. F. Lymax of Northampton : — 

Northampton, June 7, 1859. 

Hon. E. Hopkins — Dear Sir : — I sincerely regret that official 
duty will prevent me from joining in the Hadley Celebration to-mor- 
row. To show my presence in spirit and reverence for the occasion, 
— my sympathy with the living and my respect for the dead, I beg 
leave to offer you, as President of the festive board, the following- 
sentiment : 

Professor Hitchcock — Interpreter of our sandstones — dear to our 

hearthstones. His triumphant exercise of private judgment on our elder 

Scriptures of Rock, vindicates bis hneal descent from the puritan pioneers of 

New England, who placed truth above tradition, and conscience next to God. 

Kcspectfully Yours, &c., 

Sam'l F. Lyman. 

The Missionanj Pastor of Wisconsin : The plant of Christian Civilization, 
carried forth by a faithful Hadley Porter, has supplanted the " Green Bay 
trees," by the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. 

The Rev. Jeremiah Porter of Chicago, formerly of Green Bay, 
responded as follows : — 

Feeling utterly unworthy the honor intended by the sentiment just 
read I am embarrassed in replying to it, and yet I must improve the 
opportunity to express my sincere delight in being permitted to meet, 
in these intensely interesting circumstances, my fellow townsmen, af- 
ter an absence at the far Avest of twenty-eight years. 

Though I find not here the fathers that I left in this my native vil- 
lage, nevermore beautiful than now, I rejoice to meet here so many 
of their surviving children, so many of our name still dwelling on the 
soil purchased by our ancestors two hundred years ago and which 
has never passed out of the family ; to meet all the children of my 
own father and so many of his brother's children. 

The facts in the history of Hadley so admirably presented by the 
Orator of the day have led me to contrast this good old town with 
one of the young towns of the west with which Providence has given 
me a peculiar interest, and which is now the home of so many of the 
sons and daughters of this place. Having been myself the first from 
thi stown to reside there and having witnessed its unexampled growth, 
I may be excused for presenting this contrast. 

As the Rev. Mr. Russell came with a little church to take posses- 
sion of this place sold to them by the retiring Indians, so the guiding 
hand of God led me to Chicago twenty-six years ago with a company 
of United States troops and the nucleus of a church. Twenty-six 
years ago this month it was my privilege to organize the First Church 
in that place, composed chiefly of New England men. The town, in- 
cluding the troops of Fort Dearborn, had a population of only three 
hundred. During that year, 1833, about five thousand Indians as- 
sembled at Chicago by proclamation of Governor G. B. Porter of 



94 

Michigan to make a treaty for the sale of their lands in Illinois, Wis- 
consin and Michigan. After weeks of deliberation and over persua- 
sion, they relinquished four million acres of land for five million west 
of the Mississippi, and very reluctantly retired, receiving for a term 
of years an annuity of fifty thousand dollars. A tide of people at 
once set strongly toward Illinois, and Chicago received the multi- 
tude as it passed and retained its full proportion, so that now it has 
a population, of from one hundred thousand to one hundred and thir- 
ty thousand. Its o?/e original church of a quarter of a century in age is 
surrounded by some sixty Protestant churches and about twenty 
Catholic. 

It aftbrds me peculiar pleasure as this contrast in the growth of this 
ancient and venerable town of my fathers' sepulchres and the young 
giant of the west, my present home, is so vividly before me ; to say, 
that as Old Hadley sent to Chicago its earliest minister, except the 
Methodist pioneers, so it has sent many of the daughters of its late 
venerable Pastor, the Chaplain of this day, who with their husband, 
and brother and others from this quiet valley are now pillars in those 
churches, aiding to plant in that great city, whose growth has just 
begun, those institutions of learning, humanity and piety that were 
so early planted here and have made New England what it is. 

While the sons and daughters of Hadley now residing in Chicago 
can never forget the sweet valley of their birth may they cherish most 
warmly the sentiments of their christian ancestors and leave as pre- 
cious an inheritance to the city of their adoption. 

May I propose as a sentiment the children of our venerable Chap- 
lain, long the beloved Pastor of this church : 

The Poetess of the day and her sister of Chicago. 

The adopted citizens of Hadley : For none do we care more earnestly than 
our poor. 

The Rev. Wakken Pook, D. D., of Newark, N. J., responded 

in a brief, but happy and feeling manner, and in conclusion gave the 

annexed sentiment : — 

The adopted sons of Hadley — They will ever rival the homeborn children 
in the depth of their aftection and the strength of their adoption. 

The Hadley law givers of the olden time : We recognise among us one of 
their profession and descent — a worthy representative of their abiUties and 
virtues. 

Hon. John Portee of Auburn, N. Y., replied : 

My friends and fellow Townsmen, it affords me sincere pleasure to 
meet you here on this most interesting occasion. To commemorate 
the exploits of our ancestors, the first .settlers of this town, to talk 
over and celebrate their eminent virtues, their noble daring, and 
their great sufl:erings in the cause of humanity — of religious and 
civil liberty, is a pleasing task to me, and I have no doubt to ail as- 



95 

sembled here. I esteem it a privilege to be with you, and to testify 
how much I appreciate the good fortune of being able to say that 
here I was born ; here I enjoyed the invaluable teachings in which 
the youth of this town are trained ; and can to-day look back upon 
an unbroken line of ancestors who have contributed to the good 
name, and have participated in the prosperity of this town from its 
very beginning. And although I confess myself to have been among 
the number of those who have deserted the family domicil, and spent 
our lives in labors elsewhere, making room, it may be, for more 
Avorthy occupants, yet I have come back at short intervals to revisit 
the scenes of my youth, and always with deep emotions not easily 
to be described. My long residence in another State, now near fifty 
years, makes me a stranger to most of you ; yet I meet you here to- 
day, as one claiming kindred with you, and as one of the sons of 
Hadley, entitled to participate in the delightful duty of celebrating 
this centennial return of a memorable day. 

Your Committee have called on me to respond to a sentiment, 
which has allusion to our ancestors of the legal profession. To such 
of you, my friends, as are familiar with the history of Hadley, this 
will readily be understood to be a very limited theme, for with the 
exception of my esteemed and venerable friend, now present, — and 
he quit the profession so long ago, that I think he would find it 
troublesome to remember the time, — I have never known one, nor 
heard of one who practiced law here, except an uncle of mine ; and 
he after a few years of trial, removed to New Haven more than fifty 
years since. No, Mr. President, lawyers will not live where there is 
no professional business ; and the people of this town are not of that 
class that furnish business for lawyers. If they make contracts, they 
make them in good faith, and are careful to express what they mean. 
And when they have made them, they have no other thought or de- 
sign than to fulfil them, in letter and in spirit. The evasions and 
subterfuges, that are too often resorted to, and which furnish so fruit- 
ful a source of business to the profession, are foreign to their thoughts 
and condemned by their moral feelings. And in all the two hun- 
dred years' history of this town, who ever heard of a litigation ensu- 
ing out of a disputed will. There may have been such, but I have 
never heard of them ; nor do I believe there is any tradition of any 
such occurrence. How emphatic is such a fact, in establishing the 
high moral training that has always prevailed here. What high re- 
gard and deference to parental wishes it proves. You can ask for 
no better reasons than these why we have no account of lawyers, 
who have lived and flourished here. Do not understand me as in 
any manner depreciating the legal profession. Far from it. The 
science of law is a noble science, one I love ; and in the pursuit 
of which I have spent many years of labor. Those of the profession 
Avho are thoroughly imbued with its principles, make useful and val- 
uable citizens, and often become the ornaments of their time. But 
still that people that can, without any essential loss, dispense with 
their professional services, is surely deserving of some compliment — 



96 

and such, I believe, to have been the case generally with the people 
of this town. If there have been exceptions, they are so few, as not 
to detract from the high honor we would award them in this respect. 
But, Mr. President, I will not intrude longer upon your time, and 
in conclusion will offer you this sentiment: — 

May the expiration of another hundred years find here a people, equally 
ready to imitate and celebrate the self-sacrificing, patriotic and worthy exam- 
ples of the fathers of this town, as are those of the present day. 

The Chaplain of the day ; Though past the usual sunset of life, his eye is 
not dimmed, neither is the hght of his intellect faded. 

Dr. WooDBKiDGE briefly replied to the compliment, by expressing 
his gratitude to the people for their respectful kindness, and his best 
wishes for their temporal and eternal welfare. He spoke of his ad- 
vanced age, his nearness to the grave, and his hopes to meet those 
whom he then addressed, purified from error and sin, before the throne 
of God and the Lamb, in heaven. 

The following volunteer toast, by Mrs, Thomas F. Plunkett of 

Pittsfield, was then offered by the President : — 

The memory of William Goodwin; the man whose well directed public 
spirit was the pebble which turned the current of Gov. Edward Hopkins' be- 
nevolence in this direction, so that, the world over, you cannot go amiss of 
the graduates of Hopkins Academy ; nor find the corner where old Hadley 
is not known. 

The following response was then read by F. Bonney, by request 

of the same lady : 

" ]My further mind and will is, that within six months after the decease of 
my wife, five hundred pounds be made over to New England, according to 
the advice of my loving friends, Major Robert Thompson and Mr. Francis 
WlUoughby, and conveyed into the hands of the trustees before mentioned, 
in further prosecution of the aforesaid public ends, which, in the simplicity of 
my heart, are for the upholding and promoting the kingdom of the Lord Jesus 
Christ in those parts of the earth." — Extract from the Will of Gov. Edtcard 
Hojikins : about the year 1657. 

Yes, Edward Hopkins : you shall have just praise, 
On this most festive of all festal days. 
For the wise forethought, and the generous deed 
Which, for the " love of Jesus," sowed the seed 
Of that fair tree of learning, the old school 
That soon or late has had us in its rule ; 
Through the broad Union go where'er you will, 
Hopkins Academy is known there still, 
And, ten to one the " first man in the town " 
Gained on its classic " stage," his first renown ; 
Or in its " classes," his first impulse caught 
To wield the silent, mighty power of thought. 
We welcome back its graduates to-day, 
And proudly point you to the bright array, 
Not least among them, he whose eloquence 



97 

Enchants us all, but dates from " nowhere else," 

Nor he, the bright eyed minstrel of the hour, 

Whose numbers charm us by their magic power. 

And to our dear " old teachers " here's a health, 

Those patient miners of this mental wealth. 

First on the list, as first in many a heart 

He whose wise labors " gave the school a start " 

Long may he live, of that to tell the tale 

The white-haired pati'iarch of the peaceful vale. 

The President then read the following volunteer toasts : — 

To the memory of those who laid out the broad '■'■front street" in Hadley : — 
Liberal minded men. who had no smnll ideas : worthy progenitors of the sons 
who have extended the generous hospitalities and hearty welcome of the pres- 
ent occasion to the home-returning children. 

l^he three peculiar products of Old Hadlejj : Broom Corn, " School Marms " 
and Ministers' Wives. 

The following sentiment was ofTercd by Ex-Governor George N. 
Bkiggs : — 

" Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and 
their children another generation." Joel I. o. 

John B. Russell of Boston, a lineal descendant, of the sixth gen- 
eration, from Rev. Mr. Russell of Iladlcy, sent to the chair the fol- 
lowing sentiment : — 

The Church of lladleji — may it prove as durable as the Rock of Plymouth, 
and may the name and noble acts of its venerated founder, like those of the 
Pilgi'im Fathers, be held in lasting remembrance. 

Dr. Smith of Newark, N. J. made a few appropriate remarks and 

offered the following : — 

Old Hadley, her Sons and Daughters — She can truly say like the Roman 
matron, " these are my jewels." 

A letter was received from the Hon. A. F. Vinton of Ohio, in re- 
sponse to an invitation to be present upon the occasion, of which the 
following is an extract : — 

Washington City, May 28, 1859. 
Hon. Ekastus HonciNS, Dear Sir: — It was my good fortune to be born 
and to have lived from my birth to manhood, within the ancient limits of the 
town of Hadley ; and although I have been a dweller in other lands for more 
than forty years, still the recollections and fond attachments of those old-fash- 
ioned and by-gone days, which, in my memory ever cluster around the place 



98 

of my nativity, have lost, by time and distance, none of their freshness, sin- 
cerity and warmth. I regret exceedingly that it is not in my power to attend. 
INIy heart and good wishes will be with you. It will be an occasion of rare 
interest, and taking the present time as a stand-point, and looking back for 
two hundred years, and forward to what, in tlic benevolence of a wise and 
good Providence, Ave may hope lor the future, the orator of the day could not 
desire a wider, richer or better theme. 

I am, with great respect, very truly yours, 

A. F. Vinton. 

It was now seven o'clock in the evening and therefore necessary 
that the exercises should close. Other sentiments had been prepared, 
and other voices would no doubt have given utterance to the thoughts 
and emotions which seemed to well up spontaneously from full and 
overflowing hearts ; but the time for parting had come, and the great 
company quietly dispersed, each to seek his own home, and the sphere 
of his accustomed effort ; but all apparently well satisfied to have 
spent one day in commemorating the virtues of their ancestors and 
reviving the friendships of earlier years. It is to be hoped that those 
who shall occupy their places a century hence may deem it proper, 
and find it equally satisfactory, to i^ay a like tribute to the memory 
of those who have gone before. 



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